Aus der Introduction

Regarding the manner in
which Strabo, Arrianus, Diodorus, and Plinius used the Indika of
Megasthenēs, Schwanbeck remarks :—

"Strabo,
and—not unlike to Strabo—Arrianus, who, however, gave a much less
carefully considered account of India, abridged the descriptions of
Megasthenēs, yet in such a way that they wrote at once in an agreeable style
and with strict regard to accuracy. But when Strabo designed not merely to
instruct but also to delight his readers, he omitted whatever would be out
of place in an entertaining narrative or picturesque description, and
avoided above all things aught that would look like a dry list of names. Now
though this may not he a fault, still it is not to be denied that those
particulars which he has omitted would have very greatly helped our
knowledge of Ancient India. Nay, Strabo, in his eagerness to be interesting,
has gone so for that the topography of India is almost entirely a blank in
his pages.

"Diodorus,
however, in applying this principle of composition has exceeded all bounds.
For as he did not aim at writing learnedly for the instruction of others,
but in a light, amusing style, so as to be read with delight by the
multitude, he selected for extract such parts as best suited this purpose.
He has therefore omitted not only the most accurate narrations of fact, but
also the fables which his readers might consider as incredible, and has been
best pleased to describe instead that part of Indian life which to the
Greeks would appear singular and diverting. . . . Nevertheless his epitome
is not without its value; for although we do not learn, much that is new
from its contents, still it has the advantage over all the others of being
the most coherent, while at the same time it enables us to attribute with
certainty an occasional passage to Megasthenēs, which without its help we
could but conjecture proceeded from his pen.

"Since Strabo,
Arrianus, and Diodorus have directed their attention to relate nearly the
same things, it has resulted that the greatest part of the Indika has
been completely lost, and that of many passages, singularly enough, three
epitomes are extant, to which occasionally a fourth is added by Plinius.

"At a great distance
from these writers, and especially from Diodorus, stands Plinius:
whence it happens that he both differs most from that writer, and also best
supplements his epitome. Where the narrative of Strabo and Arrianus is at
once pleasing and instructive, and Diodorus charms us with a lively sketch,
Pliny gives instead, in the baldest language, [S. 20] an ill-digested
enumeration of names. With his usual wonderful diligence he has written this
part, but more frequently still he writes with too little care and
judgment,—a fact of which we have already seen numerous instances. In a
careless way, as is usual, he commends authors, so that if you compared his
accounts of Taprobane and the kingdom of the Prasii you would think that he
had lived at different periods. He frequently commends Megasthenēs, but more
frequently seems to transcribe him without acknowledgment."—pp. 56-58.

[a.a.O., S. 19f.]

Abb.: Karte "Ancient India"
[Bildquelle: a.a.O.]

FRAGMENT I., OR AN
EPITOME OF MEGASTHENĒS.

(Diod. II. 35-42.)

(35.) 1 India
, which is in shape quadrilateral, has its eastern as well as its western side
bounded by the great sea, but on the northern side it is divided by Mount
Hemōdos from that part of Skythia which is inhabited by those Skythians who are
called the Sakai, while the fourth or western side is bounded by the river
called the Indus , which is perhaps the largest of all rivers in the world after
the Nile .
2 The extent of the whole country from east to west is said to be
28,000 stadia, and from north to south 32,000.
3 Being thus of such vast extent, it seems well-nigh to embrace the
whole of the northern tropic zone of the earth, and in fact at the extreme point
of India the gnomon of the sundial may frequently be observed to cast no shadow,
while the constellation of the Bear is by night invisible, and in the remotest
parts even Arcturus disappears from view. Consistently with this, it is also
stated that shadows there fall to the southward.

4 India has
many huge mountains which abound in fruit-trees of every kind, and many vast
plains of great fertility—more or less beautiful, [S. 31] but all alike
intersected by a multitude of rivers, 5 The greater part o£ the soil,
moreover, is under irrigation, and consequently bears two crops in the course of
the year. It teems at the same time with animals of ail sorts,—beasts of the
field and fowls of the air,—of all different degrees of strength and size.
6 It is prolific, besides, in elephants, which are of monstrous bulk,
as its soil supplies food in unsparing profusion, making these animals far to
exceed in strength those that are bred in Libya . It results also that, since
they are caught in great numbers by the Indians and trained for war, they are of
great moment in turning the scale of victory.

(36.) 7 The
inhabitants, in like manner, having abundant means of subsistence, exceed in
consequence the ordinary stature, and are-distinguished by their proud bearing.
They are also found to be well skilled in the arts, as might be expected of men
who inhale a pure air and drink the very finest water.
8 And while the soil bears on its surface all kinds of fruits which
are known to cultivation, it has also under ground numerous veins of all sorts
of metals, for it contains much gold and silver, and copper and iron in no small
quantity, and even tin and other metals, which are employed in making articles
of use and ornament, as well as the implements and accoutrements of war.

5.9 Conf.
Fragm. xi.

9 In addition
to cereals, there grows throughout [S. 32] India much millet, which is kept well
watered by the profusion of river-streams, and much pulse of different sorts,
and rice also, and what is called
bosporum, as well as many other plants useful for food, of which most grow
spontaneously. 10 The soil yields, moreover, not a few other edible
products fit for the subsistence of animals, about which it would be tedious to
write. It is accordingly affirmed that famine has never visited India, and that
there has never been a general scarcity in the supply of nourishing food.
11 For, since there is a double rainfall In the course of each year,—one
in the winter season, when the sowing of wheat takes place as in other
countries, and the second at the time of the summer solstice, which is the
proper season for sowing rice and
bosporum as well as sesamum and millet—the inhabitants of India almost
always gather in two harvests annually; and even should one of the sowings prove
more or less abortive they are always sure of the other crop. 12 The
fruits, moreover, of spontaneous growth, and the esculent roots which grow in
marshy places and are of varied sweetness, afford abundant sustenance for man.
13 The fact is, almost all the plains in the country have a moisture which
is alike genial, whether it is derived from the rivers, or from the rains of the
summer season, which are wont to fall every year at a stated period with
surprising regularity ; while the great heat which prevails [S. 33] ripens the
roots which grow in the marshes, and especially those of the tall reeds.

14 But,
farther, there are usages observed by the Indians which contribute to prevent
the occurrence of famine among them ; for whereas among other nations it is
usual, in the contests of war, to ravage the soil, and thus to reduce it to an
uncultivated waste, among the Indians, on the contrary, by whom husbandmen are
regarded as a class that is sacred and inviolable, the tillers of the soil, even
when battle is raging in their neighbourhood, are undisturbed by any sense of
danger, for the combatants on either side in waging the conflict make carnage of
each other, but allow those engaged in husbandry to remain quite unmolested.
Besides, they neither ravage an enemy's land with fire, nor cut down its trees.

(37.) 15
India, again, possesses many rivers both large and navigable, which, having
their sources in the mountains which stretch along the northern frontier,
traverse the level country, and not a few of these, after uniting with each
other, fall into the river called the Ganges. 16 Now this river,
which at its source is 30 stadia broad, flows from north to south, and empties
its waters into the ocean forming the eastern boundary of the Gangaridai, a
nation which possesses a vast force of the largest-sized elephants.
17 Owing to this, their country has never been conquered by any [S.
34] foreign king : for all other nations dread the overwhelming number and
strength of these animals.
18 [Thus Alexander the Makedonian, after conquering all Asia, did not
make war upon the Gangaridai,a as he did on all others ; for when he
had arrived with all his troops at the river Ganges, and had subdued all the
other Indians, he abandoned as hopeless an invasion of the Gangaridai when he
learned that they possessed four thousand elephants well trained and equipped
for war.]
19 Another river, about the same size as the Ganges, called the
Indus, has its sources, like its rival, in the north, and falling into the ocean
forms
on its way the boundary of India ; in its passage through the vast
stretch of level country it receives not a few tributary streams which are
navigable, the most notable of them being the Hupanis, the Hudaspēs, and the
Akesinēs. Besides these rivers there are a great many others of every
description, which permeate the country, and supply water for the nurture of
garden vegetables and crops of all sorts.
20 Now to account for the rivers being so numerous, and the supply of
water so superabundant, the native philosophers and proficients in natural
science advance the following reasons :—They [S. 35] say that the countries
which surround India—those of the Skythians and Baktrians, and also of the
Āryans—are more elevated than India, so that their waters, agreeably to natural
law, flow down together from all sides to the plains beneath, where they
gradually saturate the soil with moisture, and generate a multitude of rivers.

21 A
peculiarity is found to exist in one of the rivers of India,—that called the
Sillas, which flows from a fountain bearing the same name. It differs from all
other rivers In this respect,—that nothing cast into it will float, but
everything, strange to say, sinks down to the bottom.

21 Conf.
Fragm. xxi. in
Ind. Ant. vol. V. p. 88, c. vi. 2-3.

(38.) 22
It is said that India, being of enormous size when taken as a whole, is peopled
by races both numerous and diverse, of which not even one was originally of
foreign descent, but all were evidently indigenous ;
23 and moreover that India neither received a colony from abroad, nor
sent out a colony to any other nation.
24 The legends further inform us that in primitive times the
inhabitants subsisted on such, fruits as the earth yielded spontaneously, and
were clothed with the skins of the beasts found in the country, as was the case
with the Greeks ; and that, in like manner as with them, the arts and
other appliances which improve human life were gradually invented, Necessity
herself teaching [S. 36] them to an animal at once docile and furnished not only
with hands ready to second all his efforts, but also with reason and a keen
intelligence. 25 The men of greatest learning among the Indians tell certain
legends, of which it may be proper to give a brief summary.a They
relate that in the most primitive times, when the people of the country were
still living in villages, Dionusos made his appearance coming from the regions
lying to the west, and at the head of a considerable army. He overran [S. 37]
the whole of India, as there was no great city capable of resisting his arms.
26 The heat, however, having become excessive, and the soldiers of
Dionusos being afflicted with a pestilence, the leader, who was remarkable for
his sagacity, carried his troops away from the plains up to the hills. There the
army, recruited by the cool breezes and the waters that flowed fresh from the
fountains, recovered from sickness.
37 The place among the mountains where Dionusos restored his troops
to health was called Mēros ; from which circumstance, [S. 38] no doubt, the
Greeks have transmitted to posterity the legend concerning the god, that
Dionusos was bred in
his father's thigh.b28 Having after this turned his attention to the artificial
propagation of useful plants, he communicated the secret to the Indians, and
taught them the way to make wine, as well as other arts conducive to human
well-being.
29 He was, besides, the founder of large cities, which he formed by
removing the villages to convenient sites, while he also showed the people how
to worship the deity, and introduced laws and courts of justice.
30 Having thus achieved altogether many great and noble works, he was
regarded as a deity and gained immortal honours. It is related also of him that
he led about with his army a great host of women, and employed, in marshalling
his troops for battle, drums and cymbals, as the trumpet had not in his days
been invented ;
31 and that after reigning over the whole of India for two and fifty
years he died of old age, while his sons, succeeding to the government,
transmitted the sceptre in unbroken succession to their posterity.
32 At last, after many generations had come and gone, the
sovereignty, it is said, was dissolved, and democratic governments were set up
in the cities.

23 Conf. Fragm. xlvi.a Fragm. I.B. Diod. III. 66

Concerning Dionusos.

Now some, as I have already said,
supposing that there were three individuals of this name, who lived in
different ages, assign to each appropriate achievements. They say, then,
that the most ancient of them was Indos, and that as the country, with its
genial temperature, produced spontaneously the vine-tree in great abundance,
he was the first who crushed grapes and discovered the use of the
properties of wine. In like manner he ascertained what culture was requisite
for figs and other fruit trees, and transmitted this knowledge to
after-times ; and, in a word, it was he who found out how these fruits
should be gathered in, whence also he was called Lēnaios. This same Dionusos,
however, they call also Katapōgōn, since it is a custom among the Indians to
nourish their beards with great care to the very end of their life. Dionusos
then, at the head of an army, marched to every part of the world, and taught
mankind the planting of the vine, and how to crush grapes in the winepress,
whence he was called Lēnaios. Having in like manner imparted to all a
knowledge of his other inventions, he obtained after his departure from
among men immortal honour from those who had benefited by his labours. It is
further said that the place is pointed out in India even to this day where
the god had been, and that cities are called by his name in the vernacular
dialects, and that many other important evidences still exist of his having
been born in India, about which it would be tedious to write.
25 et seqq. Conf. Fragm . lvii.
25-32 Conf. Fragm . 1. in Ind. Ant. vol . V. p. 89, c. vii . —
"He tells us further," & c . to c . viii,—"on the principle of merit ."bμηρος32 Conf Fragm. li.

(39.) 33 Such, then, are the
traditions regarding Dionusos and his descendants current among the Indians who
inhabit the hill-country. 36 They further assert, that Heraklēs also
was born among them.
34 They assign to him, like the Greeks, the club and the lion's skin.
He far surpassed other men in personal strength and prowess, and cleared sea and
land of evil beasts. 33 Marrying many wives he begot many sons, but
one daughter only. The sons having reached man's estate, he divided all India
into equal portions for his children, whom he made kings in different parts of
his dominions. He provided similarly for his only daughter, whom he reared up
and made a queen.
80 He was the founder, also, of no small number of cities, the most
renowned and greatest of which he called Palibothra . He built therein many
sumptuous palaces, and settled within its walls a numerous population. The city
he fortified with trenches of notable dimensions, which were filled with water
introduced from the river.
37 Heraklēs, accordingly, after his removal from among men, obtained
immortal honour; and his descendants, having reigned for many generations and
signalized themselves by great achievements, neither made any expedition beyond
the confines of India, nor sent out a n y colony abroad.
38 At [S. 40] last, However, after many years had gone, most of the
cities adopted the democratic form of government, though some retained the
kingly until the invasion of the country by Alexander .
89 Of several remarkable customs existing among the Indians, there is
one prescribed by their ancient philosophers which one may regard as truly
admirable : for the law ordains that no one among them shall, under any
circumstances, be a slave, but that, enjoying freedom, they shall respect the
equal right to it which all possess: for those,
they thought, who have learned neither to domineer over nor to cringe to
others will attain the life best adapted for all vicissitudes of lot : for it is
but fair and reasonable to institute laws which bind all equally, but allow
property to be unevenly distributed.

(40.) The whole population of India is
divided into seven castes, of which
the first is formed by the collective body of the Philosophers ,a
which in point of number is inferior to the other classes, but in point of
dignity preeminent over all. For the philosophers, being exempted from all
public duties, are neither the masters nor the servants of others.
41 They are, however, engaged by private persons to offer the
sacrifices due in lifetime, and to celebrate the obsequies of [S. 41] the dead :
for they are
believed to he most dear to the gods, and to be the most conversant with
matters pertaining to Hades. In requital of such services they receive valuable
gifts and privileges.
42 To the people of India at large they also render great benefits,
when, gathered together at the beginning of the year, they forewarn the
assembled multitudes about droughts and wet weather, and also about propitious
winds, and diseases, and other topics capable of profiting the hearers. 43
Thus the people and the sovereign, learning beforehand what is to happen, always
make adequate provision against a coming deficiency, and never fail to prepare
beforehand what will help in a time of need. The philosopher who errs in his
predictions Incurs no other penalty than obloquy, and he then observes silence
for the rest of his life.

44 The second
caste consists of the Husbandmen,a who appear to be far more
numerous than the others. Being, moreover, exempted from fighting and other
public services, they devote the whole of their time to tillage; nor would an
enemy coming upon a husbandman at work on his land do him any harm, for men of
this class, being regarded as public benefactors, are protected from all injury.
The land, thus remaining unravaged, and producing heavy crops, supplies the
inhabitants with all that is [S. 42]

requisite to make life very enjoyable. 45 Thehusbandmen themselves, with their wives andchildren, live in the country, and entirely avoidgoing into town. 46
They pay a land-tribute tothe king, because all India is the property ofthe crown, and no private person is permittedto own land. Besides the land-tribute, theypay into the royal treasury a fourth part of theproduce of the soil.

a
γεωργοι, Strab. Arr. Diod.

47 The third
caste consists of the Neatherds

and Shepherds,a
and in general of all herdsmen who neither settle in towns nor in villages, but
live In tents. By hunting and trapping they clear the country of noxious birds
and wild beasts. As they apply themselves eagerly and assiduously to this
pursuit, they free India from the pests with which it abounds,—all sorts of wild
beasts, and birds which devour the seeds sown by the husbandmen.

(41.) 48 The fourth caste
consists of the Artizans.a Of these some are armourers, while others
make the implements which husbandmen and others find useful in their different
callings. This class is not only exempted from paying

[S. 43] taxes, but even
receives maintenance from the royal exchequer.

a τεχνιται

49 The fifth
caste is the Military.a It is well organized and equipped for
war, holds the second place in point of numbers, and gives itself up to idleness
and amusement in the times of peace. The entire force—men-at-arms, war-horses,
war-elephants, and all—are maintained at the king's expense.

a

πολεμισται, Strab. Arr.

50 The sixth
caste consists of the Overseers.a It is their province to inquire
into and superintend all that goes on in India, and make report to the king ,
or, where there is not a king, to the magistrates.

a

εφοροι, Diod. Strab.
επισκοποι, Arr.

51 The seventh
caste consists of the Councillors and Assessors,—of those who deliberate on
public affairs. It is the smallest class, looking to number, but the most
respected, on account of the high character and wisdom of its members ;
52 for from their ranks the advisers of the king are taken, and the
treasurers of the state, and the arbiters who settle disputes. The generals of
the army also, and the chief magistrates, usually belong to this class.

53 Such, then, are about the
parts into which the body politic in India is divided. No one is allowed to
marry out of his own caste, or to [S. 44] exercise any calling or art except his
own : for instance, a soldier cannot become a husbandman, or an artizan a
philosopher.a

a "It appears strange that
Megasthenēs should have divided the people of India into seven castes . . .
Herodotus, however had divided the people of Egypt into seven castes, namely
priests, soldiers, herdsmen, swineherds, tradesmen, interpreters, and
steersmen ; and Megasthenēs may therefore have taken it for granted that
there were seven castes in India. It is a curious fact that, from the time
of Alexander's expedition to a comparatively recent date, geographers and
others have continually drawn analogies between Egypt and India."—Wheeler's
Hist, of India, vol. III. p. 192, note

(42.) 54 India possesses a vast
number of huge elephants, which far surpass
those found elsewhere
both in strength and size. This animal does not cover the female in a
peculiar way, as some affirm, but like horses and other quadrupeds.
55 The period of gestation is at shortest sixteen months, and at
furthest eighteen.a
Like mares, they generally bring forth but one young one at a time, and this the
dam suckles for six years.
56 Most elephants live to be as old as an extremely old man, but the
most aged live two hundred years.

54-56. Conf. Fragm. xxxvi.
a For some remarks on this point see Blochmann's translation of the
Aīn-i-Ahbarī,
p. 118.

57 Among the Indians officers are
appointed even for foreigners, whose duty is to see that no foreigner is
wronged. Should any of them lose his health, they send physicians to attend him,
and take care of him otherwise, and if he dies they bury him, and deliver over
such property a she leaves to his relatives.
58 The judges [S. 45] also decide cases in which foreigners are
concerned, with the greatest care, and come down sharply on those who take
unfair advantage of them. [What we have now said regarding India and its
antiquities will suffice for our present purpose.]

BOOK I.

FRAGM. II.

Arr. Exped. Alex,
V. 6. 2-11.

Of the Boundaries of India, its General
Character, and Us Rivers.a

aConf. Epit. ad init.

According to Eratosthenēs, and Megasthenēs
who lived with Siburtios the satrap of Arachōsia, and who, as he himself tells
us, often visited Sandrakottosa the king of the Indians, India forms
the largest of the four parts into which Southern Asia is divided, while the
smallest part is that region which is included between the Euphrates and our own
sea. The two remaining parts, which are separated from the others by the
Euphrates and the Indus, and lie between these rivers, are scarcely of
sufficicnt size to be compared with India, even should they be taken both
together. The same writers say that India is bounded on its [S. 46] eastern
side, right onwards to the south, by the great ocean; that its northern frontier
is formed by the Kaukasos range as far as the junction of that range with Tauros
; and that the boundary towards the west and the north-west, as far as the great
ocean, is formed by the river Indus. A considerable portion of India consists of
a level plain, and this, as they conjecture, has been formed from the alluvial
deposits of the river,—Inferring this from the fact that in other countries
plains which are far away from the sea are generally formations of their
respective rivers, so that in old times a country was even called by the name of
its river. As an instance, there is the so-called plain of the Hermos—a river in
Asia (Minor), which, flowing from the Mount of Mother Dindymênê, falls into the
sea near the Aeolian city of Smyrna. There Is also the Lydian plain of the
Kaüstros, named after that Lydian river ; and another, that of the Kaïkos, in
Mysia; and one also in Karia,—that of the Maiandros, which extends even to
Miletos, which is an Ionian city. [As for Egypt, both the historians Herodotus
and Hekataios (or at any rate the author of the work on Egypt if he was other
than Hekataios) alike agree in declaring it to be the gift of the Nile, so that
that country was perhaps even called after the river; for in early times
Aigyptos was the name of the river which now-a-days both the Egyptians and other
nations call the Nile, as the words [S. 47] of Homer clearly prove, when
he says that Menelaös stationed his ships at the mouth of the river Aigyptos.
If, then, there is but a single river in each plain, and these rivers, though by
no means large, are capable of forming, as they flow to the sea, much new land,
by carrying down silt from the uplands, where their sources are, it would be
unreasonable to reject the belief in the case of India that a great part of it
is a levbel plain, and that this plain is formed from the silt
deposited by the rivers, seeing that the Hermos, and the Kaüstros, and the
Kaïkos, and the Maiandros, and all the many rivers of Asia which fall into the
Mediterranean, even if united, would not be fit to be compared in volume of
water with an ordinary Indian river, and much less with the greatest of them
all, the Ganges, with which neither the Egyptian Nile , nor the Danube which
flows through Europe, can for a moment be compared. Nay, the whole of these if
combined all into one are not equal even to the Indus , which is already a large
river where it rises from its fountains, and which after receiving as
tributaries fifteen rivers all greater than those of Asia, and bearing off from
its rival the honour of giving name to the country, falls at last into the sea.b
[S. 48]

aConf. Epit. 1, 2.
Pliny (Hist, Nat
VI. 21.2) states that India extends from north to south 28,150 thousand
paces. This number, though it is not exactly equal to 22,300 stadia, but to
22,800, nevertheless approaches the number given by Megasthenēs nearer than
any other. From the numbers which both Arrian
(Ind. Hi. 8) and Strabo (pp. 6S-69, 690) give, Diodorus differs
remarkably, for he says the breadth extends to 28,000, and the length to
32,000 stadia. It would be rash to deny that Megasthenēs may also have
indicated the larger numbers of Diodorus, for Arrian
(Ind. iii. 7-S) adds to the number the words "Where shortest" and
"where narrowest;" and Strabo (p. 689) has added to the expression of the
breadth the words "at the shortest"
and, referring to Megasthenēs and Dēimachos, says distinctly
"who state that in some places the distance from the southern sea is
20,000
stadia, and in others 30,000 (pp. 68-69). There can be no doubt,
however, that Megasthenēs regarded the smaller, and Dēimachos the larger
number as correct; for the larger seemed to Arrian unworthy of mention, and
Strabo (p. 690) says decidedly,
"Megasthenēs and Dēimachos incline to be more moderate in their estimate,
for according to them the distance from the southern sea to Caucasus is over
20,000 stadia:
Dēimachos, however, allows that the distance in some places exceeds
30,000
stadia" ! by which he quite excludes Megasthenēs from this opinion. And
at p. 72, where he mentions the 30,000 stadia of Dēimachos, he does not say
a word of Megasthenēs. But it must be certain that 16,000 stadia is the only
measure Megasthenēs gave of the breadth of India. For not only Strabo (p.
689)and Arrian
(Ind. iii. 7) have not quoted a larger number from Megasthenēs, but
Hipparohos also (Strabo, p. 69),-- where he shows that Patroklês is unworthy
of confidence, because he has given smaller dimension for India than
Megasthenēs—only mentions the measure of 10,000 stadia; where, for what
Hipparchos wanted, the greatest number was the most suitable for his proCf.—I
think the numbers wore augmented because Megasthenēs regarded as Indian,
Kabul and that part of Ariana which Chandragupta had taken from Seleukos;
and onthe north the frontier nations Uttarakuras, which be mentions
elsewhere. What Megasthenēs said about the breadth of India remained fixed
throughout the whole geography of the Greeks, so that not even Ptolemy, who
says India extends 10,800 stadia, differs much from it. But his measure of
length has either been rejected by all, for fear of opposing the ancient
opinion that the torrid zone could not be inhabited, or (like Hipparchos)
erroneously carried much too far to the north.-—Schwanbeck, pp. 29, 30, n.
24.

India is bounded on the north by the
extremities of Tauros, and from Ariana to the [S. 49] Eastern Sea by the
mountains which are variously called by the natives of these regions Parapamisos,
and Hemōdos, and Himaos,b and other names, but by the Macedonians
Kaukasos.c The boundary on the west is the river Indus, but the
southern and eastern sides, which are both much greater than the others, run out
into the Atlantic Ocean.d
The shape of the country is thus rhomboïdal, since each of the greater sides
exceeds its opposite side by 8000 stadia, which is the length of the promontory
common to the south and the east coast, which projects equally in these two
directions. [The length of the western side, measured from the Kaukasian
mountains to the southern [S. 50] sea along the course of the river Indus to its
mouths, is said to be 13,000 stadia, so that the eastern side opposite, with the
addition of the 3000 stadia of the promontory, will be somewhere about 16,000
stadia. This is the breadth of India where it is both smallest and greatest.]
The length from west to east as far as Palibothra can be stated with greater
certainty, for the royal road which leads to that city has been measured by
schoeni, and is in length 10,000 stadia.eThe extent of the
parts beyond can only be conjectured from the time taken to make voyages from
the sea to Palibothra by the Ganges, and may be about 6000 stadia. The entire
length, computed at the shortest, will be 16,000 stadia. This is the estimate of
Eratosthenēs, who says he derived it principally from the authoritative register
of the stages on the Royal Road. Herein Megasthenēs agrees [S. 51] with him. [Patrokles,
however, makes the length less by 1000 stadia.] Conf, Arr. IncL
iii. 1-5.

b Schmieder
suggests
Ιμαοσ in Arrian.
ci.e.
The- Himālayas.
d The world was anciently regarded as an island surrounded by the
Atlantic Sea.
e All the texts read

δισμθριων
instead of
μυριων. Inall
the MSS. of Strabo also, we read
σχοινιοις, and inArrian, who extracts the same passage from
Megasthenēs,everywhere σχοινοις.
Though there is nothing to blamein either lection, yet it is easier to change
σχοινοιςthan
σχοινιοις,
for Strabo may have been surprised to find the Greek schoenus in use
also in India. The
schoenus, however, which with Eratosthenēs is a measure of 40 stadia, (Plin.
Hist. Nat. XII. 80), coincides precisely with the Indian yojana
of four
krośas. I do not forget that usually double this length is assigned to
the
yojana, but also that it is shorter than the Hindus reckon it (As.
Res.
vol. V. p. 105), and also by the Chinese pilgrims
(Foe-koue-ki, 87-88), and by Megasthenēs himself, in Strabo (p. 708,
Fragm. xxxiv. 3), from
which it seems certain that ten stadia are equal to some Indian measure
which cannot be a smaller one than the krośa. -- Schw. p. 27, n. 23.

FRAGM. V.

Strabo, II. i. 7,—p. 69.

Of the Size of India.

Again, Hipparchos, in the 2nd volume of his
commentary, charges Eratosthenēs himself with throwing discredit on Patroklês
for differing from Megasthenēs about the length of India on its northern side,
Megasthenēs making it 16,000 stadia, and Patroklês 1000 less.

FRAGM. VI.

Strabo, XV. i. 12,—pp. 689-690,

Of the She of India.

[From this, one can readily see how the
accounts of the other writers vary from one another. Thus Ktēsias says that
India is not of less size than the rest of Asia; Onēsikritos regards it as the
third part of the habitable world; and Nearchos says it takes one four months to
traverse the plain only.] Megasthenēs and Dēimachos incline to be more moderate
in their estimate, for according to them the distance from the Southern Sea to
Kaukasos is over 20,000 stadia.—[Dēimachos, however, allows that the distance in
some places exceeds 30,000 stadia. Of these notice has been taken in an earlier
part of the work.] [S. 52]

FRAGM . VII.

Strabo, II. i. 4,—-pp. 68 - 69.

Of the Size of India.

Hipparchos controverts tins view, urging the
futility of the proofs on which it rests. Patroklēs, he says, is unworthy of
trust, opposed as he is by two competent authorities, Dēimachos and Megasthenēs,
who state that in some places the distance from the southern sea is 20,000
stadia, and in others 80,000. Such, he says, is the account they give, and it
agrees with the ancient charts of the country.

FRAGM. VIII.

Arr. Indica, III. 7-8.

Of the Size of India.

With Megasthenēs the breath of India is its
extent from east to west, though this is called by others its length. His
account is that the breath at shortest is 16,000 stadia, and its length—by which
he means its extent from north to south—is at the narrowest 22,300 stadia.

FRAGM. IX.

Strabo, II. i. 19,—p. 76.

Of the setting of the Bear, and shadows
falling in contrary directions.

Again, he [Eratosthenēs] wished to show the
ignorance of Dēimachos, and his want of a [S. 53] practical knowledge of such
subjects, evidenced as it was by his thinking that India lay between the
autumnal equinox and the winter tropic, and by his contradicting the assertion
of Megasthenēs that in the southern parts of India the constellation of the Bear
disappeared from view, and shadows fell in opposite directions,a—phenomena
which he assures us are never seen in India, thereby exhibiting the sheerest
ignorance. He does not agree in this opinion, but accuses Dēimachos of ignorance
for asserting that the Bears do nowhere in India disappear from sight, nor
shadows fall in opposite directions, as Megasthenēs supposed.

Next [to the Prasii] in the interior are the
Monedes and the Suari, to whom belongs Mount Maleus, on which shadows fall
towards the north in winter, and in summer to the south, for six months
alternately.a The Bears, Baeton [S. 54] says, in that part of the
country-are only once visible in the course of the year, and not for more than
fifteen days. Megasthenēs says that this takes place in many parts of India.

a "The Mandali would seem to
be the same people as the Monedes of Pliny, who with the Suari, occupied the
inland country to the south of the Palibothri. As this is the exact position
of the country of the Mūndas and Suars, I think it quite certain that they
must be the same race as the Monedes and Suari of Pliny. In another passage
Pliny mentions, the Mandei and Malli as occupying the country between the
Calingae and the Ganges. Amongst the Malli there was a mountain named Mallus,
which would seem to be the same as the famous mount Maleus of the Monedes
and Suari. I think it highly probable that both names may be intended for
the celebrated mount Mandar, to the south of Bhāgulpur, which is fabled to
have been used by the gods and demons at the churning of the ocean. The
Mandei I would identify with the inhabitants of the Mahānadi river, which is
the Manada of Ptolemy. The Malli or Malei would therefore be the same people
as Ptolemy's Mandalae, who occupied the right bank of the Ganges to the
south of Palibothra, or they may be the people of the Rajmahāl hills who are
called Maler . . . . . . .The Suari of Pliny are the Sabarrae of Ptolemy,
and both may be identified with the aboriginal Śavaras or Suars, a wild race
of woodcutters who live in the jungles without any fixed
habitation."—Cunningham's
Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 508-9.

Conf. Solin, 52.13:

Beyond Palibothra is Mount Maleus, on which
shadows fall in winter towards the north, and in summer towards the south, for
six months alternately. The North Pole is visible in that part of the country
once in the course of the year, and not for longer than fifteen days, as Baeton
informs us, who allows that this occurs in many parts OF India.

FRAGM. XI.

Strabo, XV. i. 20,—p. 603.

Of the Fertility of India.

Megasthenēs indicates the fertility of India
by the fact of the soil producing two crops every year both of fruits and grain.
[Eratosthenēs writes to the same effect, for he speaks of a [S. 55] winter and a
summer sowing, which both have rain : for a year, he says, is never found to be
without rain at both those seasons, whence ensues a great abundance, since the
soil is always productive. Much fruit is produced by trees; and the roots of
plants, particularly of tall reeds, are sweet both by nature and by coction,
since the moisture by which they are nourished is heated by the rays of the sun,
whether it has fallen from the clouds or been drawn from the rivers.
Eratosthenēs uses here a peculiar expression : for what is called by others the
ripening of fruits and the juices of plants is called among the Indians
coction,
which is as effective in producing a good flavour as the coction by fire
itself. To the heat of the water the same writer ascribes the wonderful
flexibility of the branches of trees, from which wheels are made, as also the
fact of there being trees on which wool grows.a

From the vapours arising from such vast
rivers, and from the Etēsian winds, as Eratosthenēs states, India is watered by
the summer rains, and the plains are overflowed. During these rains,
accordingly, flaxb is sown and millet, also sesamum, rice, and
bosmorum,cand in the winter time wheat, barley, pulse,
and other esculent fruits unknown to us.

According to Megasthenēs the largest tigers
are found among the Prasii , being nearly twice the size of the lion, and so
strong that a tame tiger led by four men having seized a mule by the hinder leg
overpowered it and dragged it to him.
2The monkeys are larger than the largest dogs ; they are white except
in the face, which is black, though the contrary is observed elsewhere. Their
tails are more than two cubits in length. They are very tame, and not of a
malicious disposition : so that they neither attack man nor steal.
3Stones are dug up which are of the colour of frankincense, and
sweeter than figs or honey.
4In some parts of the country there are serpents two cubits long
which have membranous wings like bats. They fly about by night, when they let
fall drops of urine or sweat, which blister the skin of persons not on their
guard, with putrid sores. There are also winged scorpions of an extraordinary
size.
5Ebony grows there. There are also dogs of great strength and
courage, which will not let go their hold till water is poured into their
nostrils: they bite so eagerly that the eyes of some become distorted, and the
eyes of others fall out. Both a lion and a bull were held fast by a dog. The
bull was seized by the muzzle, and died before the dog could be taken off. [S.
57]

FRAGM. XIII.a

Aelian, Hist. Anim. XVII. 39. Conf.
Fragm. XII. 2.

a FRAGM. XIII.B.

Aelian, Hist Anim. XvI. 10.

Of Indian Apes.

Among the Prasii in India there is
found, they say, a species of apes of human-like intelligence, and which are
to appearance about the size of Hurkanian dogs. Nature has furnished them
with forelocks, which one ignorant of the reality would take to be
artificial. Their chin, like that of a satyr; turns upward, and their tail
is like the potent one of the lion. Their body is white all over except the
face and the tip of the tail, which are of a reddish colour. They are very
intelligent, and naturally tame. They are bred in the woods, where also they
live, subsisting on the fruits which they find growing wild on the
hills. They resort in great numbers to the suburbs of Latage, an Indian
city, where they eat rice which has been laid down for them by the king's
orders. In fact, every day a ready-prepared meal is set out for their use.
It is said that when they have satisfied their appetite they retire in an
orderly manner to their haunts in the woods, ithout injuring a single thing
that comes in their way.

Of Indian Apes.

In the country of the Praxii,b
who are an Indian people, Megasthenēs says there are apes not inferior in size
to the largest dogs. They [S. 58]

have tails five cubits long, hair grows on . theirforehead, and they have luxuriant, beards hangingclown their breast. Their face is entirelywhite, and all the rest of the body black. Theyare tame and attached to man, and not maliciousby nature like the apes of other countries.

b The
Prāchyas (i.e. Easterns) are called by Strabo, Arrian, and Pliny

Πρασιοι,
Prasii ;by Plutarch (Alex. 62).Πρασιοι,a name often used by
ΑΕlian also; by Nikolaθs
Damas.(ap. Stob.
Floril. 37, 38)
Πραυσιοι;
by Diodorus (xvii. 93)Βρησιοι;
by Cθrtius
(IX. 2,3)
Pharrasii; by Justin (xii. S, 9)Prαesides.
Megasthenēs attempted to approximate moreclosely to the Sanskrit
Prāchya,
for here he uses
Πραξιακος.
And it appears that
Πραξιοιshould be substituted forΠρασιοιin Stephan. Byzant., since it comes
between thewords
Πραξιλος and
Πρας.—Schwanheck,
p. 82, not. 6.

FRAGM.
XIV.

Aelian, Hist. Anim. XVI. 41. Conf.
Fragm. XII. 4.

Of Winged Scorpions and Serpents.

Megasthenēs says there are winged scorpions
in India of enormous size, which sting Europeans and natives alike. There are
also serpents which are likewise winged. These do not go abroad during the day,
but by night, when they let fall urine, which if it lights upon any one's skin
at once raises putrid sores thereon. Such is the statement of Megasthenēs.

FRAGM. XV.

Strabo, XV. i. 56—pp. 710-711.

Of the Beasts of India, and the Reed.

He (Megasthenēs) says there are monkeys,
rollers of rocks, which climb precipices whence they roll down stones upon their
pursuers. 2Most animals, he says, which are tame with us are wild in
India, and he speaks of horses which are one-horned and have heads like those of
deer;
3and also of reeds some of which grow straight up to the height of
thirty
orguiaeawhile [S. 59] others grow along the ground to the
length of fifty. They vary in thickness from three to six cubits in diameter.

a The orguia
was four cubits, or equal to 6 feet 1 inch.

FRAGM. XV.B.

Aelian, Hist. Anim, XVI. 20.21. Conf.
Fragm. XV. 2.1.

Of some Beasts of India.

(20.) In certain districts of India (I speak
of those which are most inland) they say there are inaccessible mountains
infested by wild beasts, and which are also the haunts of animals like those of
our own country except that they are wild; for even sheep, they say, run wild
there, as well as dogs and goats and oxen, which roam about at their own
pleasure, being independent and free from the dominion of the herdsman. That
their number is beyond calculation is stated not only by writers on India, but
also by the learned men of the country, among whom the Brachmans deserve to be
reckoned, whose testimony is to the same effect. It is also said that there
exists in India a one-horned animal, called by the natives the Kartazōn,
It is of the size of a full-grown
horse, and has a crest, and yellow hair soft as wool. It is furnished with very
good legs and is very fleet. Its legs are jointless and formed like those of the
elephant, and it has a tail like a swine's. A horn sprouts out from between its
eyebrows, and this is not straight, but curved into the most natural wreaths,
and is of a black colour. It is said to be extremely sharp, this horn. The
animal, as I learn, has a voice beyond all example loud-ringing and dissonant.
It allows other animals to approach, it, and is good-natured [S. 60] towards
them, though they say that with its congeners it is rather quarrelsome. The
males are reported to have a natural propensity not only to fight among
themselves, by butting with their horns, but to display a like animosity against
the female, and to be so obstinate in their quarrels that they will not desist
till a worsted rival is killed outright. But, again, not only is every member of
the body of this animal endued with great strength, but such is the potency of
its horn that nothing can withstand it. It loves to feed in secluded pastures,
and wanders about alone,. but at the rutting season it seeks the society of the
female, and is then gentle towards her,—nay, the two even feed in company. The
season being over and the female pregnant, the Indian Kartazōn
again becomes ferocious and seeks solitude. The foals, it is said, are taken
when quite young to the king of the Prasii, and are set to fight each other at
the great public spectacles. No full-grown specimen is remembered to have ever
been caught.

(21.) The traveller who crosses the
mountains which skirt that frontier of India which is most inland meets, they
say, with ravines which are clothed with very dense jungle, in a district called
by the Indians Korouda.a These ravines are said to be the haunts of a
peculiar kind of animal shaped like a satyr, covered all over with shaggy hair,
and having a tail like a horse's, depending from its rump. If these creatures
are left unmolested, they keep within the coppices, living on the wild fruits;
but should they hear the hunter's [S. 61] halloo and the baying of the hounds
they dart up the precipices with incredible speed, for they are habituated to,
climbing the mountains. They defend themselves by rolling down stones on their
assailants, which often kill those they hit. The most difficult to catch are
those which roll the stones. Some are said to have been brought, though with
difficulty and after long intervals, to the Prasii, but these were either
suffering from diseases or were females heavy with young, the former being too
weak to escape, and the latter being impeded by the burden of the womb.—Conf.
Plin. Hist. Nat
VII. 2. 17.

aV.L. Κολουνδα.

FRAGM. XVI.

Pliny, Hist. Nat. VIII. 14. 1.

Of the Boa-Constrictor.

According to Megasthenēs, serpents in India

grow to such a size that they swallow stags andbulls whole.

Solinus, 52. 33.

So huge are the serpents that they swallow
stags

whole, and other animals of
equal size.

F

RAGM.
XVII.

Aelian, Hist. Anim. VIII. 7.

Of the Electric Eel

I learn from Megasthenēs that there is in
the Indian Sea a small kind of fish which is never seen when alive, as it always
swims in deep water, and only floats on the surface after it is dead. Should any
one touch it he becomes faint and swoons,—nay, even dies at last. [S. 62]

FRAGM. XVIII.

Pliny, Hist. Nat
VI. 24. 1.

Of Taprobane.a

Megasthenēs says that Taprobane is separated
from the mainland by a river ; that the inhabitants are called Palaiogonoi,b
and that their country is more productive of gold and large pearls than India.

a This island has been known by
many names :—

Lanka.—The only name it goes by in
Sanskrit, and quite unknown to the Greeks and Romans.

Simundu or Palesimundn.—Probably a
Greek form of the Sanskrit
Pāli-Simanta. This name had gone ont of use before the time of
Ptolemy the Geographer.

Taprobane.—Supposed to represent the
Sanskrit Tāmraparṇi ('red-leaved' or 'copper-coloured sand'), a slightly
altered form of the Pāli Taṃbapaṇṇi, which is found in the inscription
of Asoka on the Gīrnār rock. Vide
ante, vol. V. p. 272.

Salice (perhaps properly Saline),
Serendivus, Sirlediba, Serendib, Zeilan, Ceylon. These are all
considered to be derivatives from Siñala , the Pāli form of Sinhala, '
the abode of lions.' The affix dib represents the Sanskrit
dvīpa. 'an island.'

b Lassen has tried to account for
the name Palaiogonoi thus (Dissert. de insula Taprob.
p. 9):—" We must suppose that Megasthenēs was acquainted with the Indian
myth that the first inhabitants of the island were said to have been Rākshasas
or giants, the sons of the progenitors of the world, whom he might not
inaptly call Palaiogonoi." Against this it may be remarked that, by this unusual
term and so uncommon, Megasthenēs meant to name the nation, not describe it ;
and next that Megasthenēs is not in the habit of translating names, but of
rendering them according to sound with some degree of paronomasia; lastly, that,
shortly after, we find the name of Taprobane and of its capital
Παλαισιμουνδος,
quite like to
Παλαιογονοι. Accordingly as Lassen explains Παλαισιμουνδος,
the name of the capital, by the Sanskrit
Pāli-simānta (' head of the sacred doctrine'), I would also prefer to
explain the name of the Palaiogonoi from the Sanskrit
Pāli-janās (i.e. 'men of the sacred doctrine').—Schwanbeck, p. 38, n. 35.

Solin. 53. 3.

Taprobane is separated
from India by a [S. 63] river flowing between : for one part of it
abounds with wild beasts and elephants much larger than India breeds, and man
claims the other part.

FRAGM. XIX.

Antigon. Caryst. 647.

Of Marine Trees.

Megasthenēs, the author of the
Indika, mentions that trees grow in the Indian Sea.

The Prinasa and the Cainas (a
tributary of the Ganges) are both navigable rivers. The tribes which dwell by
the Ganges are the Calingae,b nearest the sea, and higher up the
Mandei, also the Malli, among whom is Mount Mallus, the boundary of all that
region being the Ganges. Some have, asserted that this river, like the Nile,
rises from unknown sources, and in a similar way waters the country it flows
through, while others trace its source to the Skythian mountains. Nineteen
rivers are said to flow into it, of which, besides [S. 64] those already
mentioned, the Condochates,c
Erannoboas, Cosoagus, and Sonus are navigable. According to other
accounts, it bursts at once with thundering roar from its fountain, and tumbling
down a steep and rocky channel lodges in a lake as soon as it reaches the level
plain, whence it issues forth with a gentle current, being nowhere less than
eight miles broad, while its mean breadth is a hundred stadia, and its least
depth twenty fathoms.d

a V. L. Pumas.
b A great and widely diffused tribe settled mainly between the Mahānadī
and the Godāvarī. Their capital was Partualis (called by Ptolemy Kalligra), on
the Mahānadī, higher up than the site of Katak. The name is preserved in Koringa,
a great port at the mouth of the Godāvarī.
c V.LL. Canucam, Vamam.
d "The Bhāgīratī (which we shall here regard as the true Ganges) first
comes to light near Gangotri, in the territory of Garhwāl, in lat. 30° 54',
long. 79° 7", issuing from under a very low arch, at the base of a great
snow-bed, estimated to be 300 feet thick, which lies between the lofty mountains
termed St. Patrick, St. George, and the Pyramid, the two higher having
elevations above the sea, respectively, of 22,798 and 22,654 feet, and the
other, on the opposite side, having an elevation of 21,379. From the brow of
this curious wall of snow, and immediately above the outlet of the stream, large
and hoary icicles depend. They are formed by the freezing of the melted
snow-water at the top of the bed; for in the middle of the day the sun is
powerful, and the water produced by its action falls over this place in cascade,
but is frozen at night . . . . At Sūkhī the river may be said to break though
the 'Himālaya Proper,' and the elevation of the waterway is here 7,608 feet. At
Devprāg it is joined on the left side by the Alaknanda. . . From Devprāg the
united stream is now called the Ganges . . . Its descent by the Dehra Dūn is
rather rapid to Haridwār . . . . sometimes called Gangādwāra, or 'the gate of
the Ganges,' being situate on its western or right bank at the southern base of
the Sivālik range, here intersected by a ravine or gorge by which the river,
finally leaving the mountainous region, commences its course over the plains of
Hindustān. The breadth of the river in the rainy season . . . is represented to
be a full mile."—Thornton.

Solin. 52. 0-7.

In India the largest livers are the Ganges
and the Indus,—the Ganges, as some maintain, rising from uncertain sources, and,
like the Nile, [S. 65] overflowing its banks ; while others think that it rises
in the Skythian mountains. In India there is also the Hupanis,a
a very noble river, which formed the limit of Alexander's march, as the altars
set up on its banks testify. The least breadth of the Ganges is eight miles, and
the greatest twenty. Its depth where least is fully one hundred feet.

a The same as the Huphasis or
Satlej.

Conf. Fragm. XXV.1.

Some say that the least breadth is thirty
stadia, but others only three; while Megasthenēs says that the mean breadth is a
hundred stadia, and its least depth twenty orguiae.

FRAGM. XXI.

Arr. Ind. 6. 2-3.

Of the River Silas.'a

See translation of Arrian.

a
Strab. 703, Diod. II. 37, and afterwards an anonymous writer whom Ruhnken (ad
Callimach. fragm.
p. 448) has praised, and whose account may be read in Boisson,
Anecd. Graec.
I. 419. The name is written
Σιλλαςin Diodorus,in
Strabo
Σιλιας, but best Σιλας in the
epitome of Straboand in the
Anecd. Grαεc. Bahr, 369, has collected thepassages from Kt€sias. Lassen has also
illustrated thisfable(Zeitschrift.
II. 63) from Indian literature: -- "The Indians think that the river Silas
is in the north, that it petrifies everything plunged in it, whence
everything sinks and nothing swims" (Conf. -Mahābhār.
II. 1553.) Śilā means 'a stone.'—Schw, p.37, n. 32.

FRAGM. XXII.

Boissonade,
Anecd, Grose. I. p. 419,

Of the River Silas.

There is in India a river called the Silas,
named after the fountain from which it flows, on which nothing will float that
is thrown into [S. 66] it, but everything sinks to the bottom, contrary to the
usual law.

FRAGM. XXIII.

Strabo, XV. i. 38,—p. 703.

Of the River Silas.

(Megasthenēs says) that in the mountainous
country is a river, the Silas, on the waters of which nothing will float.
Dēmokritos, who had travelled over a large part of Asia, disbelieves this, and
so does Aristotle.

FRAGM. XXIV.

Arr. Ind.
5.2.

Of the Number of Indian Rivers,

See translation of Arrian.

BOOK II.

FRAGM. XXV.

Strab. XV. i. 35. 36,—p. 702.

Of the city Pataliputra.

According to Megasthenēs the mean breadth
(of the Ganges) is 100 stadia, and its least depth 20 fathoms. At the meeting of
this river and another is situated Palibothra, a city eighty stadia in length
and fifteen in breadth. It is of the shape of a parallelogram, and is girded
with a wooden wall, pierced with loopholes for the discharge of arrows. It has a
ditch in front for defence and for receiving the sewage of the city. The people
in whose country this city is situated is the most distinguished in all India,
and is called the Prasii. The king, in addition to his family [S. 67] name, must
adopt the surname of Palibothros, as Sandrakottos, for instance, did, to whom
Megasthenēs was sent on an embassy. [This custom also prevails among the
Parthians, for all are called Arsakai, though each has his own peculiar name, as
Orodēs, Phraatēs, or some other.]

Then follow these words

All the country beyond the Hupanis is
allowed to be very fertile, but little is accurately known regarding it. Partly
from ignorance and the remoteness of its situation, everything about it is
exaggerated or represented as marvellous : for instance, there are the stories
of the gold-digging ants, of animals and men of peculiar shapes, and possessing
wonderful faculties; as the Sēres, who, they say, are so long-lived that they
attain an age beyond that of two hundred years.a They mention also an
aristocratical form of government consisting of five thousand councillors, each
of whom furnishes the state with an elephant.

a This was not the name of
any particular nation, but was vaguely used to designate the inhabitants of
the region producing silk, of which
Sēr is the name in Chinese and in Japanese. The general opinion places
this region (Sērica) in Eastern Mongolia and the north-east of China, but it
has also been sought for in Eastern Turkestan, in the Himalaya towards the
sources of the Ganges, in Assam, and even in Pegu. The name is first met
with in Ktēsias.

According to Megasthenēs the largest tigers
are found in the country of the Prasii,
&c. (Cf. Fragm. XII.)

FRAGM. XXVI.

Arr. Ind.
10.

Of Pataliputra and the Manners of the
Indians.

It is further said that the Indians do not
rear monuments to the dead, but consider the [S. 68] virtues which men have
displayed in life, and the songs in which their praises are celebrated,
sufficient to preserve their memory after death. But of their cities it is said
that the number is so great that it cannot be stated with precision, but that
such cities as are situated on the banks of rivers or on the sea-coast are built
of wood instead of brick, being meant to last only for a time,—so destructive
are the heavy rains which pour down, and the rivers also when they overflow
their banks and inundate the plains,—while those cities which stand on
commanding situations and lofty eminences are built of brick and mud; that the
greatest city in India is that which is called Palibothra, in the dominions of
the Prasians, where the streams of the Erannoboas and the Ganges unite,—the
Ganges being the greatest of all rivers, and the Erannoboas being perhaps the
third largest of Indian rivers, though greater than the greatest rivers
elsewhere ; but it is smaller than the Ganges where it falls into it.
Megasthenēs informs us that this city stretched in the inhabited quarters to an
extreme length on each side of eighty stadia, and that its breadth was fifteen
stadia, and that a ditch encompassed it all round, which was six hundred feet in
breadth and thirty cubits in depth, and that the wall was crowned with 570
towers and had four-and-sixty gates. The same writer tells us further this
remarkable fact about India, that all the [S. 69] Indians are free, and not one
of them is a slave. The Lakedaemonians and the Indians are here so far in
agreement. The Lakedaemonians, however, hold the Helots as slaves, and these
Helots do servile labour; but the Indians do not even use aliens as slaves, and
much less a countryman of their own.

FRAGM. XXVII.

Strab. XV. i. 53-56,—pp. 709-10.

Of the Manners of the Indians.

The Indians all live frugally, especially
when in camp. They dislike a great undisciplined, multitude, and consequently
they observe good order. Theft is of very rare occurrence. Megasthenēs says that
those who were in the camp of Sandrakottos, wherein lay 400,000 men, found that
the thefts reported on any one day did not exceed the value of two hundred
drachmae, and this among a people who have no written laws, but are ignorant of
writing, and must therefore in all the business of life trust to memory. They
live, nevertheless, happily enough, being simple in their manners and frugal.
They never drink wine except at sacrifices.a Their beverage is a
liquor composed from rice instead of barley, and their food is principally a
rice-pottage.b The simplicity of their laws and their contracts is
[S. 70] proved by the fact that they seldom go to law. They have no suits about
pledges or deposits, nor do they require either seals or witnesses, but make
their deposits and confide in each other. Their houses and property they
generally leave unguarded. These things indicate that they possess good, sober
sense ; but other things they do which one cannot approve: for instance, that
they eat always alone, and that they have no fixed hours when meals are to be
taken by all in common, but each one eats when he feels inclined. The contrary
custom would be better for the ends of social and civil life.

a This wine was probably Soma
juice.
b Curry and rice, no doubt.

Their favourite mode of exercising the body
is by friction, applied in various ways, but especially by passing smooth ebony
rollers over the skin. Their tombs are plain, and the mounds raised over the
dead lowly. In contrast to the general simplicity of their style, they love
finery and ornament. Their robes are worked in gold, and ornamented with
precious stones, and they wear also flowered garments made of the finest muslin.
Attendants walking behind hold up umbrellas over them: for they have a high
regard for beauty, and avail themselves of every device to improve their looks.
Truth and virtue they hold alike in esteem. Hence they accord no special
privileges to the old unless they possess superior wisdom. They marry many
wives, whom they buy from their parents, giving [S. 71] in exchange a yoke of
oxen. Some they marry hoping to find in them willing helpmates ; and others for
pleasure and to fill their houses with children. The wives prostitute themselves
unless they are compelled to be chaste. No one wears a crown at a sacrifice or
libation, and they do not stab the victim, hut strangle it, so that nothing
mutilated, but only what is entire, may be presented to the deity.

A person convicted of bearing false witness
suffers mutilation of his extremities. He who maims any one not only suffers in
return the loss of the same limb, hut his hand also is cut off. If he causes an
artizan to lose his hand or his eye, he is put to death. The same writer says
that none of the Indians employ slaves; [but Onesikritos says that this was
peculiar to that part of the country over which Musikanos ruled. ]a

a His kingdom lay in Sindhu,
along the banks of the Indus, and his capital was probably near Bakkar.

The care of the king's person is entrusted
to women, who also are bought from their parents.a The guards and the
rest of the soldiery attend outside the gates. A woman who kills the king when
drunk becomes the wife of his successor. The sons succeed the father. The king
may not sleep during the daytime, and by night he is obliged to change his couch
from [S. 72] time to time, with a view to defeat plots against his life.b

a This was not unknown in
native court's of later times, Conf. Idrisi's account of the Balhara king.
b "The present king of Ava, who evidently belongs to the Indo-Chinese
type, although he claims a Kshatriya origin, leads a life of seclusion very
similar to that of Sandrokottos. He changes his bedroom every night, as a
safeguard against sudden treachery." (Wheeler's
Hist of
India,
vol. III. p. 132, note.)

The king leaves his palace not only in time
of war, but also for the purpose of judging causes. He then remains in court for
the whole day, without allowing the business to be interrupted, even though the
hour arrives when he must needs attend to his person,—that is, when he is to be
rubbed with cylinders of wood. He continues hearing cases while the friction,
which is performed by four attendants, is still proceeding. Another purpose for
which he leaves his palace is to offer sacrifice; a third is to go to the chase,
for which he departs in Bacchanalian fashion. Crowds of women surround him, and
outside of this circle spearmen are ranged. The road is marked off with ropes,
and it is death, for man and woman alike, to pass within the ropes. Men with
drums and gongs lead the procession. The king hunts in the enclosures and shoots
arrows from a platform. At his side stand two or three armed women. If he hunts
in the open grounds he shoots from the back of an elephant. Of the women, some
are in chariots, some on horses, and some even on elephants, and they are
equipped with weapons [S. 73] of every kind, as if they were going on a
campaign.a

a In the drama of
Śakuntalā, Rāja Dushyanta is represented as attended in the chase by
Yavana women, with bows in their hands, and wearing garlands of wild
flowers.

[These customs are very strange when
compared with our own, but the following are still more so; ] for Megasthenēs
states that the tribes inhabiting the Kaukasos have intercourse with women in
public, and eat the bodies of their relatives,a and that there are
monkeys which roll down stones, &c.
(Fragm. XV, follows, and then Fragm. XXIX.)

a Herodotus (bk. iii. 38, 99,
101) has noted the existence of both practices among certain Indian tribes.

FRAGM. XXVII. B.

Aelian. V. L.
iv. 1.

The Indians neither put out money at usury,
nor know how to borrow. It is contrary to established usage for an Indian either
to do or suffer a wrong, and therefore they neither make contracts nor require
securities. Conf. Suid. V.

Ινδοι.

FRAGM. XX

VII.
C.

Nicol. Damasc. 44 ; Stob. Serm. 42.

Among the Indians one who is unable to
recover a loan or a deposit has no remedy at law. All the creditor can do is to
blame himself, for trusting a roque.

FRAGM. XXYII. D.

Nicol. Damasc. 44; Stob.
Serm. 42.

He who causes an artisan to lose his eye or
his hand is put to death. If one is guilty of a very heinous offence the king
orders his hair to be [S. 74] cropped, this being a punishment to the last
degree infamous,

FRAGM. XXVIII.

Athen. iv. p. 15S.

Of the Suppers of the Indians.

Megasthenēs, in the second book of his
Indika, says that when the Indians are at supper a table is placed before
each person, this being like a tripod. There is placed upon it a golden bowl,
into which they first put rice, boiled as one would boil barley, and then they
add many dainties prepared according to Indian receipts.

FRAGM. XXIX.a

Strab, XV . i. 57,—p. 711.

Of fabulous tribes.

But deviating into fables he says there are
men five spans and even three spans in height, some of whom want the nose,
having only two orifices above the mouth through which they breathe.
2 Against the men of three spans, war, as Homer has sung, is waged by
the cranes, and also by partridges, which are as large as geese,b
[S. 75] These people collect and destroy the eggs of the cranes, for it is
in their country the cranes lay their eggs, and thus the eggs and the young
cranes are not to be found anywhere else. Frequently a crane escapes having the
brazen point of a weapon
in its body, from wounds received in that country. 3
Equally absurd is the account given of the Euōtokoitai,c
[S. 76] of the wild men, and of other monsters. 4 The wild men
could not be brought to Sandrakottos, for they refused to take food and died.
Their heels are in front, and the instep and toes are turned backwards.d5 Some were brought
to the court
who had no mouths and were tame. They dwell near the sources of the Ganges, and
subsist on the savour of roasted flesh and the perfumes of fruits and flowers,
having instead of months orifices through which they breathe. They are
distressed with things of evil smell, and
6 hence it is with difficulty they keep their hold on life,
especially in a camp. Referring to the other monstrosities, the philosophers
told him of the 0kupedes, a people who in running could leave the horse behind;e
7 of the Enotokoitai, who had ears reaching down to their feet, so that
they could sleep in them, and were so strong that they could pull up trees and
break a bowstring. 8 Of others the Monommatoi, who have the [S. 77]
ears of a clog, their one eye set in the middle of their forehead, the hair
standing erect, and their breasts shaggy;
f of the Amuktēres also, a people without nostrils, who devour
everything, eat raw meat, and are short-lived, and die before old age
supervenes.g The upper part of the mouth protrudes far over the lower
lip.
9 With regard to the Hyperboreans, who live a thousand years, they
give the same account as Simonidēs, Pindaros, and other mythological writers .h10 The story told by Timagenēs, that [S. 78] showers fall of drops of
copper, which are swept together, is a fable.
11 Megasthenēs states—what is more open to belief, since the same is
[S. 79] the case in Iberiai—that tire rivers carry down gold dust,
and that a part of this is paid by way of tribute to the king.

a Cf. Strab. II. 9,—p. 70:—Dēimachos
and Megasthenēs are especially unworthy of credit. It is they who tell those
stories about the men who sleep in their ears, the men without mouths, the
men without nostrils, the men with one eye, the men with long legs, and the
men with their toes turned backward- They renewed Homer's fable about the
battle between the Cranes and the Pygmies, asserting that the latter were
three spans in height. They told of the ants that dig for gold, of Pans with
wedge-shaped heads, and of serpents swallowing down oxen and stags, horns
and all,—the one author meanwhile accusing the other of falsehood, as
Eratosthenēs has remarked.

b Ktēsias in his Indika mentions Pygmies as belonging to India.
The Indians themselves considered them as belonging to the race of the
Kirātae, a barbarous people who inhabited woods and mountains and lived by
hunting, and who were so diminutive that their name became a synonym for
dwarf. They were thought to fight with vultures and eagles. As they were of
Mongolian origin, the Indians represented them with the distinctive features
of that race, but with their repulsiveness exaggerated. Hence Megasthenēs
spoke of the Amuktēres, men without noses, who had merely breathing-holes
above the mouth. The Kirātae are no doubt identical with the Scyrites (V. L.
Syrictes) of Plinius and the Kirrhadai of tbe
Periplus Maris Evythraei.

c The Euōtokoitai are called in Sanskrit Karṇaprāvaramās,
and are frequently referred to in the great epic poems—e.g. Mahābh.
II. 1170, 1875. The opinion was universally prevalent among the Indians
that barbarous tribes had large ears: thus not only are the
Karṇaprāvaramās
mentioned, but also
Karṇikās, Lambakarṇās, Mahākarṇās (i.e. long or large eared)',
Uṣrakarṇās (i.e. camel-eared), Oshṭhakarṇās (i.e. having the ears
close to the lips),
Pāṇikarṇās (i.e. having hands for ears). Schwanb. 66. "It is easy,"
says Wheeler (Hist. Ind. vol. III. p. 179), "for any one conversant
with India to point out the origin of many of the so-called fables. The ants
are not as big as foxes, but they are very extraordinary excavators. The
stories of men pulling up trees, and using them as clubs, are common enough
in the Mahābhārata, especially in the legends of the exploits of
Bhīma. Men do not have ears haṇging down to their feet, but both, men and
women will occasionally elongate their ears after a very extraordinary
fashion by thrusting articles through the lobe. . . . . If there was one
story more than another which excited the wrath of Strabo, it was that of a
people whose ears hung down to their feet. Yet the story is still current in
Hindustān. Bābu Johari Dās says:—-'An old woman once told me that her
husband, a sepoy in the British army, had seen a people who slept on one
ear, and covered themselves with the other.' (Domestic Manners and
Customs of the Hindus, Banācas, 1860.)" The story may be referred to the
Himālayas. Fitch, who travelled n India about 1585, says that a people in
Bhutān had ears a span long."

d These wild men are
mentioned both by Ktēsias and Baeto. They were called Antipodes on account
of the peculiar structure of their foot, and were reckoned among Aethiopian
races, though they are often referred to in the Indian epics under the name
Paśchādangulajas, of which the

e 'Okupedes' is a
transliteration into Greek, with a slight change, of the Sanskrit
Ekapadas, ('having ono foot'), the name of a tribe of the Kirātae noted
for swiftness of foot, the quality indicated by the Greek term. The
Monopodes are mentioned by Ktēsias, who confunded ihem with the Skiapodes,
the men who covered themselves with the shadow of their foot.

f What Mogasthoues here
mentions as the characteristics of a single tribe are by the Indians
attributed to several. The one-eyed men they are wont to call
ekākshās or
ekavilochanās—the men with hair standing erect, urdhvakeśa, Indian
Cyclōpes
even are mentioned under the name of lalāṭākshas,
i.e. having one eye in the forehead: vide Schwanb. 70.

g "That the Astomi are
mentioned in the Indian books, we cannot show so well as in the case of the
Amuktēres, whom Megasthēnes described as

παμφαγους, ωμοφαγους,
ολιγοχρονιοθς.Nevertheless the very words of the description are a
proof that he followed the narratives of the Indians, for the words
παμφαγους,
&c. by which he has described tho Amuktēres are very rarely used in Greek,
and are translations of Indian words." Schwanb. 70.

h Pindar who locates the
Hyperboreans somewhere about the mouths of the Ister, thus rings of them:—

"But who with venturous course through
wave or waste
To Hyperborean haunts and wilds untraced,
E'er found his wondrous Way ?
There Perseus pressed amain,
And 'midst the feast, entered their strange abode
Where hecatombs of asses slain
To soothe the radiant god
Astounded he beheld. Their rude solemnities,
Their barbarous shouts, Apollo's heart delight;
Laughing the rampant brute he sees
Insult the solemn rite.
Still their sights, their customs strange
Scare not the 'Muse,' while all around
The dancing virgins range,
And melting lyres and piercing pipes resound.
With braids of golden bays entwined
Their soft resplendent locks they bind,
And feast in bliss the genial hour:
Nor foul disease, nor wasting age,
Visit the sacred race; nor wars they wage,
Nor toil for wealth or power."

(10th Pythian ode, 11. 46 to 69, A.
Moore's metrical version.)

Megasthenēs had the penetration to
perceive that the Greek fable of the Hyperboreans had an Indian source in
the fables regarding the
Uttarakurus. This word means literally the' Kuru of the North.' "The
historic origin,'' says P. V. de Saint-Martin, "of the Sanskrit appellation
Uttarakuru is unknown, but its acceptation never varies. In all the
documents of Upavedic literature, in the great poems, in the Purānas,—wherever,
in short, the word is found,—it pertains to the domain of poetic and
mythological geography. Uttarakuru is situated in the uttermost regions of
the north at the foot of the mountains which surround Mount Meru, far beyond
the habitable world. It is the abode of demigods and holy Rishis whose lives
extend to several thousands of years. All access to it is forbidden to
mortals. Like the Hyperborean region of Western mythologists, this too
enjoys the happy privilege of an eternal spring, equally exempt from excess
of cold and excess of heat, and there the sorrows of the soul and the pains
of the body-are. alike unknown It is clear enough that this land of the
blest is not of our world.

"In their intercourse with the Indians
after the expedition of Alexander, the Greeks became acquainted with, these
fictions of Brahmanic poetry, as well as with a good many other stories
which made them look upon India, as a land of prodigies. Megasthenēs, like
Ktēsias before him, had collected a great number of such stories, and either
from his memoirs or from contemporary narratives, such as that of Dēimachos,
the fable of the Uttarakurus had spread to the West, since, from what Pliny
tells us (vi. 17, p. 316) one Amōmētus had composed a treatise regarding
them analogous to that of Hecataeus regarding the Hyperboreans. It is
certainly from this treatise of Amōmētus that Pliny borrows the two lines
which he devotes to his Attacorae, 'that a girdle of mountains warmed with
the sun sheltered them from the blasts of noxious winds, and that they
enjoyed, like the Hyperboreans, an eternal spring.' 'Gens hominum Attacorum,
apricis ab omni noxio afflatu seclusa collibus, eadem, qua Hyperborei degunt,
temperie.' (Plin. loc. cit.
Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6, 84.) Wagner transfers this description to
the Sēres in general, (of whom the
Attacorae of Pliny form part), and some modern critics (Mannert, vol.
IV. p. 250, 1875;
Forbiger Hanclb. der alten Geogr.
vol.11, p. 472, 1844) have believed they could see in it a reference to the
great wall of China.) We see from a host of examples besides this, that the
poetic fables and popular legends of India had taken, in passing into the
Greek narratives, an appearance of reality, and a sort of historical
consistency."
(Étude sur la Géographie Grecque et Latine de l'Inde,
pp. 413-414.) The same author (p. 412) says, "Among the peoples of Sērica,
Ptolemy reckons the
Ottorocorrhae, a name which in Pliny is written Attacorae, and which
Ammianus Marcellinus, who copies Ptolemy, distorts into Opurocarra. There is
no difficulty in recognizing under this name the Uttarakuru of Sanskrit
books."

Sckwanbeck (p. 70) quotes Lassen, who writes
somewhat to the same effect:—"Uttarakuru is a part of Sērica, and as the first
accounts of India came to the West from the Sēres, perhaps a part of the
description of the peaceful happy life of the Sēres is to be explained from the
Indian stories of the Uttarakuru. The story of the long life of the Sēres may be
similarly explained, especially when Megasthenēs reckons the life attained by
the Hyperboreans at 1000 years. The
Mahābhārata (VI. 264) says that the Uttarakurus live 1000 or 10,000 years.
We conclude from this that Megasthenēs also wrote of the Uttarakurus, and that
he not improperly rendered their name by that of the Hyperboreans."-—Zeitschr.
II. 67.

b Not Spain, but the country
between the Black Sea and the Caspian, now called Georgia.

FRAGM. XXX.

Plin, Hist. Nat,
VII. ii. 14-22.

Of fabulous races.

According to Megasthenēs, on a mountain
called Nulo a there live men whose feet are turned [S. 80] backward,
and who have eight toes on each foot; 2 while on many of the
mountains there lives a race of men having heads like those of dogs, who are
clothed with the skins of wild beasts, whose speech is barking, and who, being
armed with claws, live by hunting and fowling. b [2b
Ktēsias asserts on his own authority that the number of these men was upwards of
120,000, and that there is a race in India whose females bear offspring but once
in the course of their life, and that their children become at once
grey-haired.]

a V. L. Nullo.b Called by Ktēsias Κυνοκεφαλοιand in Sanskrit
Śunamuchās
or Śvāmuchās.

3 Megasthenēs speaks of a race of
men among the Nomadic Indians who instead of nostrils have merely orifices,
whose legs are contorted like snakes, and who are called Scyritae. He speaks
also of a race living on the very confines of India on the east, near the source
of the Ganges, the Astomi, who have no mouth; who cover their body, which is all
over hairy, with the soft down found upon the leaves of trees ; and who live
merely by breathing, and the perfume inhaled by the nostrils. They eat nothing,
and they drink nothing. They require merely a variety of odours of roots and of
flowers and of wild apples. The apples they carry with them when they go on a
distant journey, that they may always have something to smell. Too strong an
odour would readily kill them. [S. 81]

Beyond, the Astomi, in the remotest part of
the mountains, the Trispithami and the Pygmies are said to have their abode.
They are each three spans in height—that is, not more than seven-and-twenty
inches. Their climate is salubrious and they enjoy a perpetual spring, under
shelter of a barrier of mountains which rise on the north. They are the same
whom Homer mentions as being harassed by the attacks of the cranes.
5 The story about them is—that mounted on the backs of rams and
goats, and equipped with arrows, they march down in spring-time all in a body to
the sea, and destroy the eggs and the young of these birds. It takes them always
three months to finish this yearly campaign, and were it not undertaken they
could not defend themselves against the vast flocks of subsequent years. Their
huts are made of clay and feathers and egg-shells. [Aristotle says that
they live in caves, bat otherwise he gives the same account of them as others.].
- . .

[5b From Ktēsias we learn that
there is a people belonging to this race, which is called Pandorē and settled in
the valleys, who live two hundred years, having in youth hoary hair, which in
old age turns black. On the other hand, others do not live beyond the age of
forty,—nearly related to the Macrobii, whose women bear offspring but once.
Agatharchidēs says the same of them, adding that they subsist on locusts, and
are swift of foot.]
6 Clitarchus and [S. 82] Megasthenēs call them Mandi,a and
reckon the number of their villages at three hundred. The females bear children
at the age of seven, and are old women at forty.b

Hear a mountain which is called Nulo there
live men whose feet are turned backwards and have eight toes on each foot.
Megasthenēs writes that on different mountains in India there are tribes of men
with dog-shaped heads, armed with claws, clothed with skins, who speak not in
the accents of human language, but only bark, and have fierce grinning jaws. [In
Kt

ēsias
we read that in some parts the females bear offspring but once, and that the
children are white-haired from their birth, &c]

Those who live near the source of the
Ganges, requiring nothing in the shape of food, subsist on the odour of wild
apples, and when they go on a long journey they carry these with them for safety
of their life, which they can support by inhaling their perfume. Should they
inhale very foul air, death is inevitable.

FRAGM. XXXI.

Plutarch, de facie in orbe lunae.
(Opp. ed. Reisk, tom. ix. p. 701.)

Of the race of men without mouths.a

a Conf. Fragm. XXIX. 5, XXX.
3.

For how could one find growing there that
[S.. 83] Indian root which Megasthenēs says a race of men who neither eat nor
drink, and in fact have not even mouths, set on fire and burn like incense, in
order to sustain their existence with its odorous fumes, unless it received
moisture from the moon?

(39) According to him (Megasthenēs) the
population of India is divided into seven parts. The philosophers are first in
rank, but form the smallest class in point of number.
2 Their services are employed privately by persons who wish to offer
sacrifices or perform other sacred rites, and also publicly by the kings at what
is called the Great Synod, wherein at the beginning of the new year all the
philosophers are gathered together before the king at the gates, when any
philosopher who may have committed any useful suggestion to writing, or observed
any means for improving the crops and the cattle, or for promoting the public
interests, declares it publicly.
3 If any one is detected giving false information thrice, the law
condemns him to be silent for the rest of his life, but he who gives sound
advice is exempted from paying any taxes or contributions. [S. 84]

(40) The second
caste consists of the husbandmen, who form the bulk of the population, and
are in disposition most mild and gentle. They are exempted from military
service, and cultivate their lands undisturbed by fear. They never go to town,
either to take part in its tumults, or for any other purpose.
5 It therefore not infrequently happens that at the same time, and in
the same part of the country, men may be seen drawn up in array of battle, and
righting at risk of their lives, while other men
close at hand are ploughing and digging in perfect
security, having these soldiers to protect them. The whole of the land is
the property of the king, and the husbandmen till it on condition of receiving
one-fourth of the produce.

(41) 6 The third
caste consists of herdsmen and hunters, who alone are allowed to hunt, and
to keep cattle, and to sell draught animals or let them out on hire. In return
for clearing the land of wild beasts and fowls which devour the seeds sown in
the fields, they receive an allowance of grain from the king. They lead a
wandering life and live under tents,

Fragm. XXXVI. follows here.

[So much, then on the subject of wild
animals. We shall now return to Megasthenēs, and resume from where we
digressed.]

(46) 7 The forth class after
herdsmen and hunters consists of those who work at trades, of those who vend
wares, and of those who are employed in bodily labour. Some of these pay
tribute, and render to the state certain prescribed services. But the
armour-makers and shipbuilders receive wages and their victuals from the king;
for whom [S. 85] alone they work. The general in command of the army supplies
the soldiers with weapons, and the admiral of the fleet lets out ships on hire
for the transport both of passengers and merchandize.

(47) The fifth
class consists of fighting men, who, when not engaged in active service,
pass their time in idleness and drinking. They are maintained at the king's
expense, and hence they are always ready, when occasion calls, to take the
field, for they carry nothing of their own with them but their own bodies.

(48) The sixth
class consists of the overseers, to whom is assigned the duty of watching
all that goes on, and making reports secretly to the king. Some are entrusted
with the inspection of the city, and others with that of the army. The former
employ as their coadjutors the courtezans of the city, and the latter the
courtezans of the camp. The ablest and most trustworthy men are appointed to
fill these offices.

The seventh
class consists of the councillors and assessors of the king. To them belong the
highest posts of government, the tribunals of justice, and the general
administration of public affairs.a12 No one is allowed to marry out of his [S. 86] own caste, or to
exchange one profession or trade for another, or to follow more than one
business. An exception is made in favour of the philosopher, who for his virtue
is allowed this privilege.

a The Greek writers by
confounding some distinctions occasioned by civil employment with those
arising from that division have increased the number (of classes) from five
(including the handicrafts-man or mixed class) to seven. This number is
produced by their supposing the king's councillors and assessors to form a
distinct class from the Brahmans; by splitting the class of Vaisya into two,
consisting of shepherds and husbandmen; by introducing a caste of spies; and
by omitting the servile class altogether. With, these exceptions the classes
are in the state described by Menu, which is the groundwork of that still
subsisting.—Eiphinstone's
History of India, p. 236.

FRAGM. XXXIV.

Strab. XV. 1. 50-52,—pp. 707-709.

Of the administration of public affairs. Of
the use of Horses and Elephants,

(Fragm. XXXIII. has preceded this.)

(50) Of the great officers of state, some
have charge of the market, others of the city, others of the soldiers. Some
superintend the rivers, measure the land, as is done in Egypt, and inspect the
sluices by which water is let out from the main canals into their branches, so
that every one may have an equal supply of it.
2 The same persons have charge also of the huntsmen, and are
entrusted with the power of rewarding or punishing them according to their
deserts. They collect the taxes, and superintend the occupations connected with
land, as those of the woodcutters, the carpenters, the blacksmiths, and the
miners.
3 They construct roads, and at every ten stadiaset up a pillar
to show the by-roads and distances.
4 Those who have charge of the city are [S. 87] divided into six
bodies of five each. The members of the first look after everything relating to
the industrial arts. Those of the second attend to the entertainment of
foreigners. To these they assign lodgings, and they keep watch over their modes
of life by means of those persons whom they give to them for assistants. They
escort them on the way when they leave the country, or, in the event of their
dying, forward their property to their relatives. They take care of them when
they are sick, and if they die bury them.
5 The third body consists of those who inquire when and how births
and deaths occur, with the view not only of levying a tax, but also in order
that births and deaths among both high and low may not escape the cognizance of
Government.
6 The fourth class superintends trade and commerce. Its members have
charge of weights and measures, and see that the products in their season are
sold by public notice. No one is allowed to deal in more than one kind of
commodity unless he pays a double tax.
7 The fifth class supervises manufactured articles, which they sell
by public notice. What is new is sold separately from what is old, and there is
a fine for mixing the two together.
8 The sixth and last class consists of those who collect the tenths
of the prices of the articles sold. Fraud in the payment of this tax is punished
with death.

9 Such are the functions which
these bodies [S. 88] separately discharge. In their collective capacity they
have charge both of their special departments, and also of matters affecting the
general interest, as the keeping of public buildings in proper repair, the
regulation of prices, the care of markets, harbours, and temples. 10Text
to the city magistrates there is a third governing body, which directs military
affairs. This also consists of six divisions, with five members to each. One
division is appointed to cooperate with the admiral of the fleet, another with
the superintendent of the bullock-trains which are used for transporting engines
of war, food for the soldiers, provender for the cattle, and other military
requisites. They supply servants who beat the drum, and others who carry gongs;
grooms also for the horses, and mechanists and their assistants. To the sound of
the gong they send out foragers to bring in grass, and by a system of rewards
and punishments ensure the work being done with despatch and safety.
11 The third division has charge of the foot-soldiers, the fourth of
the horses, the fifth of the war-chariots, and the sixth of the elephants.
12 There are royal stables for the horses and elephants, and also a
royal magazine for the arms, because the soldier has to return his arms to the
magazine, and his horse and his elephant to the stables.
13 They use the elephants without bridles. The chariots are drawn on
the march [S. 89] by oxen, 14 but the horses are led along by a
halter, that their legs may not be galled and inflamed, nor their spirits damped
by drawing chariots.
15 In addition to the charioteer, there are two fighting men who sit
up in the chariot beside him. The war-elephant carries four men—three who shoot
arrows, and the driver.a

a "The fourfold division of
the army (horse, foot, chariots, and elephants) was the same as that of Menu
; hut Strabo makes a sextuple division, by adding the commissariat and naval
department."

(Fragm. XXVII. follows.)

FRAGM. XXXV.

Aelian, Hist. Anim. XIII. 10.

Of the use of Horses and Elephants.

Cf. Fragm. XXXlV. 13-15.

When it is said that an Indian by springing
forward in front of a horse can check his speed and hold him back, this is not
true of all Indians, but only of such as have been trained from boyhood to
manage horses; for it is a practice with them to control their horses with bit
and bridle, and to make them move at a measured pace and in a straight course.
They neither, however, gall their tongue by the use of spiked muzzles, nor
torture the roof of their mouth. The professional trainers break them in by
forcing them to gallop round and round in a ring, especially -when they see them
refractory. Such as undertake this work require to have a strong hand as well as
a thorough knowledge of [S. 90] horses. The greatest proficients test their
skill by driving a chariot round and round in a ring ; and in truth it would be
no trilling feat to control with ease a team of four high-mettled steeds when
whirling round in a circle. The chariot carries two men who sit beside the
charioteer. The war-elephant, either in what is called the tower, or on his bare
back in sooth, carries three fighting men, of whom two shoot from the side,
while one shoots from behind. There is also a fourth, man, who carries in his
hand the goad wherewith he guides the animal, much in the same way as the pilot
and captain of a ship direct its course with the helm.

FRAGM. XXXVI.

Strab. XV. 1. 41-43,—pp. 704-705.

Of Elephants.

Conf. Epit. 54-50.

(Fragm. XXXIII.6 has preceded this.)

A private person is not allowed to keep
either a horse or an elephant. These animals are held to be the special property
of the king, and persons are appointed to take care of them.
2 The manner of hunting the elephant is this. Round a bare patch of
ground is dug a deep trench about five or six stadia in extent, and over this is
thrown a very narrow bridge which gives access to the enclosure.
3 Into this enclosure are introduced three or four of the
best-trained female elephants. The men themselves lie in ambush in concealed
huts.
4 The wild [S. 91] elephants do not approach this trap in the
daytime, but they enter it at night, going In one by one.
5 When all have passed the entrance, the men secretly close it up ;
then, introducing the strongest of the tame fighting elephants, they fight it
out with the wild ones, whom at the same time they enfeeble with hunger.
6 When the latter are now overcome with fatigue, the boldest of the
drivers dismount unobserved, and each man creeps under his own elephant, and
from this position creeps under the belly of the wild elephant and ties his feet
together.
7 When this is done they incite the tame ones to beat those whose
feet are tied till they fall to the ground. They then bind the wild ones and the
tame ones together neck to neck with thongs of raw ox-hide.
8 To prevent them shaking themselves in order to throw off those who
attempt to mount them, they make cuts all round their neck and then put thongs
of leather into the incisions, so that the pain obliges them to submit to their
fetters and to remain quiet. From the number caught they reject such as are too
old or too young to be serviceable, and the rest they lead away to the stables.
Here they tie their feet one to another, and fasten their necks to a firmly
fixed pillar, and tame them by hunger.
10 After this they restore their strength with green reeds and grass.
They next teach them to be obedient, which they effect by soothing them, some by
[S. 92]
coaxing
words, and others by songs and the music of the drum. 11 Few of them
are found difficult to tame, for they are naturally so mild and gentle in their
disposition that they approximate to rational creatures. Some of them take up
their drivers when fallen in battle, and carry them off in safety from the
field. Others, when their masters have sought refuge between their forelegs,
have fought in their defence and saved their lives. If in a fit of anger they
kill either the man who feeds or the man who trains them, they pine so much for
their loss that they refuse to take food, and sometimes die of hunger.

12 They copulate like horses, and
the female casts her calf chiefly in spring. It is the season for the male, when
he is in heat and becomes ferocious. At this time he discharges a fatty
substance through an orifice near the temples. It is also the season for the
females, when the corresponding passage opens.
13 They go with young for a period which varies from sixteen to
eighteen months. The dam suckles her calf for six years.
14 Most of them live as long as men who attain extreme longevity, and
some live over two hundred years. They are liable to many distempers, and are
not easily cured.
15 The remedy for diseases of the eye is to wash it with cows' milk.
For most of their other diseases draughts of black wine are administered to
them. For the cure of their wounds they are made to [S. 93] swallow butter, for
this draws out iron. Their sores are fomented with swine's flesh.

FRAGM. XXXVII.

Arr. Ind. ch. 13-14.

(Fragm. XXXII. comes before this.)

(See the translation of Arrian's
Indika.)

[FRAGM. XXXVII. B.]

Aelian, Hist Anim. XII. 44.

Of Elephants.

(Cf. Fragm. XXXVI. 9-10 and XXXVII. 940
init.
c. XIV.).

In India an elephant if caught when
fall-grown is difficult to tame, and longing for freedom thirsts for blood.
Should it be bound in chains, this exasperates it still more and it will not
submit to a master. The Indians, however, coax it with food, and seek to pacify
it with various things for which it has a liking, their aim being to fill its
stomach and to soothe its temper. But it is still angry with them, and takes no
notice of them. To what device do they then resort ? They sing to it their
native melodies, and soothe it with the music of an instrument in common
use which has four strings
and is called a
skindapsos. The creature now pricks up its ears, yields to the soothing
strain, and its anger subsides. Then, though there is an occasional outburst of
its suppressed passion, it gradually turns its eye to its food. It is then freed
from its bonds, but does not seek to escape, being enthralled with the music. It
even takes food eagerly, and, like a luxurious guest riveted to the festive
board, has no wish to go, from its love of the music.

FRAGM. XXXVIII.

Aelian, Hist. Anim. XIII. 7.

Of the diseases of Elephants.

(Cf. Fragm. XXXVI. 15 and XXXVII. 15.)

The Indians cure the wounds of the elephants
which they catch, in the manner following :— They treat them in the way in
which, as good old [S. 94] Homer tells us, Patroklos treated the wound of
Eurypylos,—they foment them with lukewarm water.a If After this they
rub them over with butter, and if they are deep allay the inflammation by
applying and inserting pieces of pork, hot but still retaining the blood. They
cure ophthalmia with cows' milk, which is first used as a fomentation for the
eye, and is then injected into it. The animals open their eyelids, and finding
they can see better are delighted, and are sensible
of the benefit
like human beings. In proportion as their blindness diminishes their
delight overflows, and this is a token that the disease has been cured. The
remedy for other distempers to which they are liable is black wine; and if this
potion fails to work a cure nothing else can save them.

a See Iliad,
bk. XI. 845.

FRAGM. XXXIX.

Strab. XV. 1.44,—p. 706.

Of Gold-digging Ants.a

a See Ind. Ant vol. IV. pp.
225 seqq. where cogent arguments are adduced to prove that the 'gold-digging
ants' were originally neither, as the ancients supposed, real ants, nor, as
so many eminent men of learning have supposed, larger animals mistaken for
ants on account of their appearance and subterranean habits, but Tibetan
miners, whose mode of life and dress was in the remotest antiquity exactly
what they are at the present day.

Megasthenēs gives the following account of
these ants. Among the Derdai a great tribe of Indians, who inhabit the mountains
on the [S. 95] eastern borders,a there Is an elevated plateauabout 3,000 stadia in circuit. Beneath the surface there are mines of
gold, and here accordingly are found the ants which dig for that metal. They are
not inferior in size to wild foxes. They ran with amazing speed, and live by the
produce of the chase. The time when they dig is winter.
b They throw up heaps of earth, as moles do, at the mouth of the
mines. The gold-dust has to be subjected to a little boiling. The people of the
neighbourhood, coming secretly with beasts of burden, carry this off. If they
came openly the ants would attack them, and pursue thorn if they fled, and would
destroy both them and their cattle. So, to effect the robbery without being
observed, they lay clown in several different places pieces of the flesh of wild
beasts, and when the ants are by this device dispersed they carry off the
gold-dust. [S. 96] This they sell to any trader they meet withc while
it is still in the state of ore, for the art of fusing metals is unknown to
them.d

a These are the Dardae of
Pliny, the Daradrai of Ptolemy, and the Daradas of Sanskrit literature. "The
Dards are not an extinct race. According to the accounts of modern
travellers, they consist of several wild and predatory tribes dwelling among
the mountains on the north-west frontier of Kāśmīr and by the banks of the
Indus."
Ind. Ant. loc. cit.

b "The miners of Thok-Jalung,
in spite of the cold, prefer working in winter; and the number of their
tents, which in summer amounts to three hundred, rises to nearly six hundred
in winter. They prefer the winter, as the frozen soil then stands well, and
is not likely to trouble them much by falling in."—Id.

cΤοτυχοντι των εμπορων. If the different reading
του τζχοντος τοις εμποροις be adopted, the rendering is,@They dispose of it to merchants at any
price."

They get the gold from ants. These creatures
are larger than foxes, but are in other respects like the ants of our own
country. They dig holes in the earth like other ants. The heap which they throw
up consists of gold the purest and brightest in all the world. The mounds are
piled up close to each other in regular order like hillocks of gold dust,
whereby all the plain is made effulgent. It is difficult, therefore, to look
towards the sun, and many who have attempted to do this have thereby destroyed
their eyesight. The people who are next neighbours to the ants, with a view to
plunder these heaps, cross the intervening desert, which is of no great extent,
mounted on wagons to which they have yoked their swiftest horses. They arrive at
noon, a time when the ants have gone underground, and at [S. 97] once seizing
the booty make off at full speed. The ants, on learning what has been done,
pursue the fugitives, and overtaking them fight with them till they conquer or
die, for of all animals they are the most courageous. It hence appears that they
understand the worth of gold, and that they will sacrifice their lives rather
than part with it,

FRAGM. XLI.

Strab. XV. 1. 58-60,—pp. 711-714.

Of the Indian Philosophers.

(Fragm. XXIX. has preceded this.)

(58) Speaking of the philosophers, he (Megasthenēs)
says that such of them as live on the mountains are worshippers of Dionysos,
showing as proofs that he had come among them the wild vine, which grows
in their country only, and the ivy, and the laurel, and the myrtle, and the
box-tree, and other evergreens, none of which are found beyond the Euphrates,
except a few in parks, which it requires great care to preserve. They observe
also certain customs which are Bacchanalian. Thus they dress in muslin, wear the
turban, use perfumes, array themselves in garments dyed of bright colours ; and
their kings, when they appear in public, are preceded by the music of drums and
gongs. But the philosophers who live on the plains worship Hērakles. [These
accounts are fabulous, and are impugned by many writers, especially what is said
about the vine and wine. For the greater part of Armenia, and the whole of
Mesopotamia and Media, onwards to Persia and Karmanla, lie beyond the Euphrates,
[S. 98] and throughout a great part of each of these countries good vines grow,
and good wine is produced.]

(59) Megasthenēs makes a different division
of the philosophers, saying that they are of two kinds—one of which he calls the
Brachmanes, and the other the Sarmanes.a The Brachmanes are
best esteemed, for they are more consistent in their opinions. From the time of
their conception in the womb they are under the guardian care of learned men,
who go to the mother and, under the pretence of using some incantations for the
welfare of herself and her unborn babe, in reality give her prudent hints and
counsels. The women who listen most willingly are thought to he the most
fortunate in their children. After their birth the children are under the care
of one person after another, and as [S. 99] they advance in age each succeeding
master is more accomplished than his predecessor. The philosophers have their
abode in a grove in front of the city within a moderate-sized enclosure. They
live in a simple style, and lie on beds of rushes or (deer) skins. They abstain
from animal food and sexual pleasures, and spend their time in listening to
serious discourse, and in imparting their knowledge to such as will listen to
them. The hearer is not allowed to speak, or even to cough, and much less to
spit, and if he offends in any of these ways he is cast out from their society
that very day, as being a man who is wanting in self-restraint. After living in
this manner for seven-and-thirty years, each individual retires to his own
property, where he lives for the rest of his days in ease and serenity.b
They then array themselves in fine muslin, and wear a few trinkets of gold
on their fingers and in their ears. They eat flesh, but not that of animals
employed in labour. They abstain from hot and highly seasoned food. They marry
as many wives as they please, with a view to have [S. 100] numerous children,
for by having many wives greater advantages are enjoyed, and, since they have no
slaves, they have more need to have children around them to attend to their
wants.

a "Since the word

Σαρμανας(thε form used by
Clemensof Alexandria) corresponds to the letter with theSanskrit word śramaṇa
(i.e.
an ascetic), it is evident that the forms
Γαρμανας and Γερμανας, which are found in all
the MSS. of Strabo, are incorrect. The mistake need notsurprise us, since the
ΣΑ when closely written
togetherdiffer little in form from the syllable ΓΑ. In the sameway Clement's Αλλοβιοι
must be changed into Strabo's
Υλοβιοι, corresponding with the Sanskrit
Vanaprastha—the man of the first three castes who, after the term ofhis householdership has expired, has entered the
thirdāśrama or order,
and has proceeded
(prastha) to a life in the woods (Vāna).'Schwanbeck, p. 46; H.
H. Wilson,
Gloss. " It is a capital question," he adds, "who the Sarmanae were,
some considering them to be Buddhists, and others denying them to be
such. Weighty arguments are adduced on both sides, but the opinion of those
seems to approach nearer the truth who contend that they were Buddhists."

b A mistake (of the Greek
writers) originates in their ignorance of the fourfold division of a
Brahman's life. Thus they speak of men who had been for many years sophists
marrying and returning to common life (alluding probably to a student who,
having completed the austerities of the first period, becomes a
householder):" Elphinstone's
History of India, p. 2S6, where it is also remarked that the
writers erroneously prolong the period during which student listen to their
instructors in silence and respect, making it extend in all cases to
thirty-seven, which is the greatest age to which Manu (chap. III. sec. 1)
permits it in any case to be protracted.

The Brachmanes do not communicate a
knowledge of philosophy to their wives, lest they should divulge any of the
forbidden mysteries to the profane if they became depraved, or lest they should
desert them if they became good philosophers : for no one who despises pleasure
and pain, as well as life and death, wishes to be in subjection to another, but
this is characteristic both of a good man and of a good woman.

Death is with them a very frequent subject
of discourse. They regard this life as, so to speak, the time when the child
within the womb becomes mature, and death as a birth into a real and happy life
for the votaries of philosophy. On this account they undergo much discipline as
a preparation for death. They consider nothing that befalls men to be either
good or bad, to suppose otherwise being a dream-like illusion, else how could
some be affected with sorrow, and others with pleasure, by the very same things,
and how could the same things affect the same individuals at different times
with these opposite emotions ?

Their ideas about physical phenomena, the
same author tells us, are very crude, for they are better in their actions than
in their reasonings, inasmuch as their belief is in great measure [S. 101] based
upon fables ; yet on many points their opinions coincide with those of the
Greeks, for like them they say that the world had a beginning, and is liable to
destruction, and is in shape spherical, and that the Deity who made it, and who
governs it, is diffused through all its parts. They hold that various first
principles operate in the universe, and that water was the principle employed in
the making of the world. In addition to the four elements there is a fifth
agency, from which the heaven and the stars were produced.a The earth
is placed in the centre of the universe. Concerning generation, and the nature
of the soul, and many other subjects, they express views like those maintained
by the Greeks. They, wrap up their doctrines about immortality and future
judgment, and kindred topics, in allegories, after the manner of Plato. Such are
his statements regarding the Brachmanes.

a
Ākāśa, 'the ether or sky.'

(60) Of the Sarmanesa he tells us
that [S. 102] those who are held in most honour are called the Hylobioi. They
live in the woods, where they subsist on leaves of trees and wild fruits, and
wear garments made from the bark of trees. They abstain from sexual intercourse
and from wine. They communicate with the kings, who consult them by messengers
regarding the causes of things, and who through them worship and supplicate the
deity. Next in honour to the Hylobioi are the physicians, since they are engaged
in the study of the nature of man. They are simple in their habits, but do not
live in the fields. Their food consists of rice and barley-meal, which they can
always get for the mere asking, or receive from those who entertain them as
guests in their houses. By their knowledge of pharmacy they can make marriages
fruitful, and determine the sex of the offspring. They effect cures rather by
regulating diet than by the use of medicines. The remedies most esteemed are
ointments and plasters. All others they consider to be in a great measure
pernicious in their nature.b This class and the other class practise
fortitude, both by undergoing active toil, and by the endurance of pain, so that
they remain for a whole day motionless in one fixed attitude.c
[S. 103]

a Schwanbeck argues from the
distinct separation here made between the Brachmanes and the Sarmanes, as
well as from the name
Śramaṇa being especially applied to Bauddha teachers, that the latter
are here meant. They are called
Σαμαναιοιby Bardesanes (ap. Porphyr. Aβstin.
IV.17) and Alex. Polyhistor. (ap. Ψyrill. contra Julim. IV. p.133 B, ed. Paris, 1638). Conf. aλso Hieronym.
adJovinian. II. (ed. Paris, 1706, T. II. pt. n. p. 206). And
this is just the Pali name
Sammana, the equivalent of the Sanskrit śrammaṇa. Bohlen in
De Buddhaismi origine et aetate definiendis sustains this view, but
Lassen (Rhein. Mus. für Phil. I. 171 ff.) contends that the
description agrees better with the Brākman ascetics. See Schwanbeck, p.
45ff. and Lassen, Ind. Alterth. (2nd ed). II. 705, or (1st ed.) II.
700.

b "The habits of the
physicians," Elphinstone remarks, "seem to correspond with those of Brahmans
of the fourth stage."

c "It is indeed," says the
same authority, "a remarkable circumstance that the religion of Buddha
should never have been expressly noticed by the Greek authors, though it had
existed for two centuries before Alexander. The only explanation is that the
appearance and manners of its followers were not so peculiar as to enable a
foreigner to distinguish them from the mass of the people,"

Besides these there are diviners and
sorcerers, and adepts in the rites and customs relating to the dead, who go
about begging both in villages and towns.

Even such of them as are of superior culture
and refinement inculcate such superstitions regarding Hades as they consider
favourable to piety and holiness of life. Women pursue philosophy with some of
them, but abstain from sexual intercourse.

FRAGM. XLII.

Clem. Alex.
Strom. I. p. 305 D (ed. Colon. 103S).

That the Jewish race is by far the oldest of
all these, and that their philosophy, which has been committed to writing,
preceded the philosophy of the Greeks, Philo the Pythagorean shows by many
arguments, as does also Aristoboulos the Peripatetic, and many others whose
names I need not waste time in enumerating. Megasthenēs, the author of a work
on India, who lived with Seleukos Nikator, writes most clearly on this
point, and his words are these :—"All that has been said regarding nature by
the ancients is asserted also by philosophers out of Greece, on the one part in
India by the Brachmanes, and on the other in Syria by the people called the
Jews".
[S. 104]

Aristoboulos the Peripatetic somewhere
writes to this effect:—" All that has been said," &c.

a In this passage, though
Cyrill follows Clemens, he wrongly attributes the narrative of Megasthenēs
to Aristoboulos the Peripatetic, whom Clemens only praises"-- Schwanbeck, p.
50.

FRAGM. XLIII.

Clem. Alex.
Strom. I. p. 305, A, B (ed. Colon. 16S8).

Of the Philosophers of India.

[Philosophy, then, with all its blessed
advantages to man, nourished long ages ago among the barbarians, diffusing its
light among the Gentiles, and eventually penetrated into Greece. Its hierophants
were the prophets among the Egyptians, the Chaldaeans among the Assyrians, the
Druids among the Gauls, the Sarmanaeans who were the philosophers of the
Baktrians and the Kelts, the Magi among the Persians, who, as you know,
announced beforehand the birth of the Saviour, being led by a star till they
arrived in the land of Judaea, and among the Indians the Gymnosophista, and
other philosophers of barbarous nations.]

There are two sects of these Indian
philosophers—one called the Sarmānai and the other the Brachmānai. Connected
with the Sarmānai are the philosophers called the Hylobioi,a who [S.
105] neither live in cities nor even in houses. They clothe themselves with the
bark of trees, and subsist upon acorns, and drink water by lifting it to their
mouth with their hands. They neither marry nor beget children [like those
ascetics of our own day called the Enkratētai. Among the Indians are those
philosophers also who follow the precepts of Boutta,b whom they
honour as a god on account of his extraordinary sanctity.] [S. 106]

a The reading of the MSS is
Allobioi.

b V. l.

Βουτα.—The
passage admits of a different rendering: "They (the Hylobioi) are those
among the Indians who follow the precepts of Boutta." Colebrooke in his Observations
on the Sect of the Jains, has quoted this passage from Clemens to
controvert the opinion that the religion and institutions of the orthodox
Hindus are more modern than the doctrines of Jina and of Buddha. "Here," he
says, "to my apprehension, the followers of Buddha are clearly distinguished
from the Brachmanes and Sarmanes. The latter, called Germanes by Strabo, and
Samanaeans by Porphyrius, are the ascetics of a different religion, and may
have belonged to the sect of Jina, or to another. The Brachmanes are
apparently those who are described by Philostratus and Hierocles as
worshipping the sun; and by Strabo and by Arrian as performing sacrifices
for the common benefit of the nation, as well as for individuals ... They
are expressly discriminated from the sect of Buddha by one ancient author,
and from the Sarmanes (a) or Samanaeans (ascetics of various tribes) by
others. They are described by more than one authority as worshipping the
sun, as performing sacrifices, and as denying the eternity of the world, and
maintaining other tenets incompatible with the supposition that the sects of
Buddha or Jina could be meant. Their manners and doctrine, as described by
these authors, are quite conformable with the notions and practice of the
orthodox Hindus. It may therefore be confidently inferred that the followers
of the Vedas flourished in India when it was visited by the Greeks under
Alexander, and continued to flourish from the time of Megasthenēs, who
described them in the fourth century before Christ, to that of Porphyrius,
who speaks of them, on later authority, in the third century after Christ."
(a) Samana is the Pāli form of the older
Śramana,

FRAGM. XLIV.

Strab. XV. 1. 68,—p. 718.

Of Kalanos and Mandanis.

Megasthenēs, however, says that
self-destruction is not a dogma of the philosophers, but that such as commit the
act are regarded as foolhardy, those naturally of a severe temper stabbing
themselves or casting themselves down a precipice, those averse to pain drowning
themselves, those capable of enduring pain strangling themselves, and those of
ardent temperaments throwing themselves into the fire. Kalanos was a man of this
stamp. He was ruled by his passions, and became a slave to the table of
Alexander.a He is on this account condemned
by his countrymen, but Mandanis is applauded because when messengers from
Alexander invited him to go to the son of Zeus, with the promise of gifts if he
complied, and threats of punishment if he refused, he did not go. Alexander, he
said, was not the son of Zeus, for he was not so much as master of the larger
half of the world. As for himself, [S. 107] he wanted none of the gifts of a man
whose desires nothing could satiate ; and as for his threats he feared
them not : for if he lived, India would supply him with food enough, and if he
died, he would be delivered from the body of flesh now afflicted with age, and
would be translated to a better and a purer life. Alexander expressed admiration
of the man, and let him have his own way.

a" Kalanos followed
the Makedonian army from Taxila, and when afterwards taken ill burnt himself
on a funeral pyre in the presence of the whole Makedonian army, without
evincing any symptom of pain. His real name, according to Plutarch, was
Sphines, and he received the name Kalanos among tbe Greeks because in
saluting persons he used the form
καλε
instead of the Greek χαιρε.
What Plutarchhere calls καλεis probably the Sanskrit form
kalyāṇa,
which is commonly used in addressing a person, and signifies 'good, just,'or
distinguished,' "--Smith's
Classical Dictionary.

FRAGM. XLV.

Arr. VII. ii. 3-0.

(See the translation of Arrian's Indika.)

BOOK IV.

FRAGM. XLVI.

Strab. XV. I. G-S,—pp. 636-033.

That the Indians had never been attacked by
others, nor had themselves attacked others.

(Cf. Epit. 23.)

6. But what just reliance can we place on
the accounts of India from such expeditions as those of Kyros and Semiramis?a
Megasthenēs concurs in this view, and recommends his readers to put no [S.
108] faith in the ancient history of India. Its people, he says, never, sent an
expedition abroad, nor was their country ever invaded and conquered except by
Hērakles and Dionysos
in old times, and by the Makedonians in our own. Yet Sesōstris the
Egyptianb and Tearkōn the Ethiopian advanced [S. 109] as far as
Europe. And Nabukodrosorc who is more renowned among the Chaldaeans
than even Hērakles among the Greeks, carried his arms to the Pillars,d
which Tearkōn also reached, while Sesōstris penetrated from Iberia even into
Thrace and Pontos. Besides these there was Idanthyrsos the Skythian, who overran
Asia as far as Egypt.e But not one of these great conquerors
approached India, and Semiramis, who meditated its conquest, died before the
necessary preparations were undertaken. The Persians indeed summoned the
Hydrakaif from India to serve as mercenaries, but they did not lead
an army into the country, and only approached its borders when Kyros marched
against the Massagetai.

a "The expedition of
Semiramis as described by Diodorus Siculus (II. 16-19), who followed the
Assyriaka
of Ktēsias, has almost the character of a legend abounding with puerilities,
and is entirely destitute of those geographical details which stamp events
with reality. If this expedition is real, as on other grounds we may believe
it to be, some traces will assuredly be found of it in the cuneiform
inscriptions of Nineveh, which are destined to throw so much unexpected
light on the ancient history of Asia. It has already been believed possible
to draw from these inscriptions the foundations of a positive chronology
which will fully confirm the indications given by Herodotus as the real
historical character of the expeditions of Semiramis and Kyros, it is
certain that their conquests on the Indus were only temporary acquisitions,
since at the epoch when Dareios Hystaspēs mounted the throne the eastern
frontier of the empire did not go beyond Arakhosia (the
Haraqaiti of the Zend texts, the Haraouvatis
of the cuneiform inscriptions, the
Arrokhadj of Musalman geography, the provinces of Kandahār and of
Ghazni of existing geography)—that is to say, the parts of
Afghanistan which lie east of the Sulimān chain of mountains. This fact is
established by the great trilingual inscription of Bisoutoun, which
indicates the last eastern countries to which Dareios had carried his arms
at the epoch when the monument was erected. This was before he had achieved
his well-known conquest of the valley of the Indus."—St. Martin,
Étude sur la Géographie Grecque et Latine de l'Inde, pp. 14
seqq.

b Sesostris. (called Sesoōsis
by Diodorus) has generally been identified with Ramses the third king of the
19th dynasty, of Manetho, the son of Seti, and the father of Menephthab the
Pharaoh of the Exodus. Lepsius, however, from a study of the Tablet of
Rameses II. found at Abydos in Egypt, and now in the British Museum, has
been led to identify him with the Sesortasen or Osirtasen of the great 12th
dynasty .—See
Report of the Proceedings of the Second International Congress of
Orientalists,
p. 44.

c V.l.
Ναβοκοδροσορον.

d
Called by Ptolemy the "Pillars of Alexander," above Albania and Iberia at the
commencement of the Asiatic Sarmatia.

e Herodotus mentions an invasion
of Skythians which was led by Madyas. As Idanthyrsos may have been a common
appellative of the Skythian kings, Strabo may here be referring to that
invasion.

f The Hydrakai are called also
Oxydrakai. The name, according to Lassen, represents the Sanskrit
Kshudraka.
It is variously, written Sydrakai, Syrakusai, Sabagrae, and Sygambri.

Of Dionysos and Hērakles.

7. The accounts about Hērakles and [S. 110]
Dionysos, Megasthenēs and some few authors with him consider entitled to credit,
[but the majority, among whom is Eratosthenēs, consider them incredible and
fabulous, like the stories current among the Greeks ]

8. On such grounds they called a particular
race of people Nyssaians, and their city Nyssa,a which Dionysos had
founded, and the mountain which rose above the city Meron, assigning as their
reason for bestowing these names that ivy grows there, and also the vine,
although its fruit does not come to perfection, as the clusters, on account of
the heaviness of the rains, fall off the trees before ripening. They further
called the Oxydrakai descendants of Dionysos, because the vine grew in their
country, and their processions were conducted with great pomp, and their kings
on going forth to war and on other occasions marched in Bacchic fashion, with
drums beating, while they were dressed in gay-coloured robes, which is also a
custom among other Indians. Again, when Alexander had captured at the first
assault the rock called Aornos, the base of which is washed by the Indus near
its source, his followers, magnifying the affair, affirmed that Hērakles had
thrice assaulted the same rock and had been thrice repulsed.b They
[S. 111] said also that the Sibae were descended from those who accompanied
Hērakles on his expedition, and that they preserved badges of their descent, for
they wore skins like Hērakles, and carried clubs, and branded the mark of a
cudgel on their oxen and mules,c In support of this story they turn
to account the legends regarding Kaukasos and Promētheus by transferring them
hither from Pontos, which they did on the slight pretext that they had seen a
sacred cave among the Paropamisadae. This they declared was the prison of
Promētheus, whither Hērakles had come to effect his deliverance, and that this
was the Kaukasos, to which the Greeks represent Promētheus as having been bound.
d [S. 112]

a V. ll. 'Νυσαιουσ,
Νυσαν.

b This celebrated rock has
been identified by GeneralCunningham with the ruined fortress of Rāṇīgat, situated immediately
above the small village of Nogrām, which lies about sixteen miles north by
west from Ohind, which he takes to he the Embolima of the ancients. "Rāṇīgat,"
he says, "or the Queen's rock, is a large upright block on the north edge of
the fort, on which Rāja Vara's
rāṇī is said to have seated herself daily. The fort itself is
attributed to Rāja Vara, and some ruins at the foot of the hill are called
Rāja Vara's stables . . . I think, therefore, that the hill-fort of Aornos
most probably derived its name from Rāja Vara, and that the ruined fortress
of Rāṇīgat has a better claim to be identified with the Aornos of Alexander
than either the Mahāban hill of General Abbott, or the castle of Rāja Hodi
proposed by General Court and Mr. Loewenthal." See Grote's
History of India, vol. VIII. pp. 437-8, footnote.

c According to Curtius, the
Sibae, whom he calls Sobii, occupied the country between the Hydaspēs and
the Akesinēs. They may have derived their name from the god Śiva.

d"No writer before
Alexander's time mentions the Indian gods. The Makedonians, when they came
into India, in accordance with the invariable practice of the Greeks,
considered the gods of the country to be the same as their own. Śiva they
were led to identify with Bacchus on their observing the unbridled license
and somewhat Bacchic fashion of his worship, and because they traced some
slight resemblance between the attributes of the two deities, and between
the names belonging to the mythic conception of each. Nor was anything
easier, after Euripides had originated the fiction that Dionysos had roamed
over the East, than to suppose that the god of luxuriant fecundity had made
his way to India, a country so remarkable for its fertility. To confirm this
opinion they made use of a slight and accidental agreement in names. Thus
Mount Meru seemed an indication of the god who sprang from the thigh of Zeus
(εκ διος μηρου). Thus they thought the Kydrakae (Oxydrukai)
the offspring of Dionysos because the vine grew in their country, and they
saw that their kings displayed great pomp in their processions. On equally
slight grounds they identified Kṛishṇa, another god whom they saw
worshipped, with Hērakles; and whenever, as among the Sibae, they saw the
skins of wild beasts, or clubs, or the like, they assumed that Hērakles had
at some time or other dwelt there."—Schwanb. p. 43.

FRAGM. XLVII.

Arr. Ind. V. 4-12.

(See the translation of Arrian's Indika.)

FRAGM. XLVIII.

Josephus Contra Apion. I. 20 (T. II.
p. 451, Haverc.).

Of Nabuchodrosor.

(Cf. Fragm. XLVI. 2.)

Megasthenēs also expresses the same opinion
in the 4th hook of his Indika,
where he endeavours to show that the aforesaid king of the Babylonians (Nabouchodonosor)
surpassed Hērakles in courage and the greatness of his achievements, by telling
us that he conquered even Ibēria.

FRAGM. XLVIII. B.

Joseph. Ant. Jud. X. ii. 1 (T. I. p.
53S, Haverc.).

[In this place (Nabouchodonosor) erected
also of stone elevated places for walking about on, [S. 113] which had to the
eye the appearance of mountains, and were so contrived, that they were planted
with all sorts of trees, because his wife, who had been bred up in the land of
Media, wished her surroundings to be like those of her early home.] Megasthenēs
also,
in the 4th book of his Inclika,
makes mention of these things, and thereby endeavours to show that this king
surpassed Hērakles in courage and the greatness of his achievements, for he says
that he conquered Libya and a great part of Ibēria.

FRAGM. XLVIII. C.

Zonar. ed. Basil. 1557, T. I. p. 87.

Among the many old historians who mention
Nabonchodonosor, Jōsephos enumerates Bērōsos, Megasthenēs, and Diokles.

Megasthenēs, in
his fourth booj of the Indika,
represents Nabouchodonosor as mightier than Hērakles, because with great
courage and enterprise he conquered the greater part of Libya and Ibēria.

FRAGM. XLIX.

Abyden. ap.
Euseb. Praep. Ev.
I. 41 (ed. Colon. 1688, p. 456 D).

Of Nabouchodrosor,

Megasthenēs says that Nabouchrodosor, who
was mightier than Hērakles, undertook an expedition [S. 114] against Libya and
Ibēria, and that having conquered them he planted a colony of these people in
the parts lying to the right of Pontos.

FRAGM. L.

Arr. Ind.
7-9.

(See the translation of Arrian's Indika.)

FRAGM. L. B.

Plin. Hist Nat.
IX. 55.

Of Pearls.

Some writers allege that in swarms of
oysters, as among bees, individuals distinguished for size and beauty act as
leaders. These are of wonderful cunning in preventing themselves being caught,
and are eagerly sought for by the divers. Should they be caught, the others are
easily enclosed in the nets as they go wandering about. They are then put into
earthen pots, where they are buried deep in salt. By this process the flesh is
all eaten away, and the hard concretions, which are the pearls, drop down to the
bottom.

FRAGM. LI.

Phlegon. Mirab.
33.

Of the Pandaian Land.

(Cf. Fragm. XXX. 6.)

Megasthenēs says that the women of the
Pandaian realm bear children when they are six years of age. [S. 115]

FRAGM. L. C.

Plin.
Hist. Nat. VI, xxi. 4-5.

Of the Ancient History of the Indians.

For the Indians stand almost alone among the
nations in never having migrated from their own country. From the days of Father
Bacchus to Alexander the Great their kings are reckoned at 154, whose reigns
extend over 6451 years and 3 months.

Solin. 52. 5.

Father Bacchus was the first who invaded
India, and was the first of all who triumphed over the vanquished Indians. From
him to Alexander the Great 6451 years are reckoned with 3 months additional, the
calculation being made by counting the kings who reigned in the intermediate
period, to the number of 153.

FRAGM. XLV.

Arr. VII. ii. 3-9.a

a This fragment is an extract
from Arrian's Expedition of Alexander, and not his Indika as stated (by an
oversight) at p. 107. The translation is accordingly now inserted.

Of Kalanos and Mandanis.

This shows that Alexander, notwithstanding
the terrible ascendancy which the passion for glory had acquired over him, was
not altogether without a perception of the things that are better ; for when he
arrived at Taxila and saw the Indian [S. 116] gymnosophists, a desire
seized him to have one of these men brought into his presence, because he
admired their endurance. The eldest of these sophists, with whom the others
lived as disciples with a master, Dandamis by name, not only refused to go
himself, but prevented the others going. He is said to have returned this for
answer, that he also was the son of Zeus as much as Alexander himself was, and
that he wanted nothing that was Alexander's (for he was well off in his present
circumstances), whereas he saw those who were with him wandering over so much
sea and land for no good got by it, and without any end coming to their many
wanderings. He coveted, therefore, nothing Alexander had it in his power to
give, nor, on the other hand, feared aught he could do to coerce him : for if he
lived, India would suffice for him, yielding him her fruits in due season, and
if he died, he would be delivered from his ill-assorted companion the body.
Alexander accordingly did not put forth his hand to violence, knowing the man to
be of an independent spirit. He is said, however, to have won over Kalanos, one
of the sophists of that place, whom Megasthenēs represents as a man utterly
wanting in self-control, while the sophists themselves spoke opprobriously of
Kalanos, because that, having left the happiness enjoyed among them, he went to
serve another master than God. [S. 114]

DOUBTFUL FRAGMENTS.

FRAGM. LII.

Aelian, Hist. Anim. XII. 8.

Of Elephants.

(Conf. Fragm. xxxvi. 10, xxxvii. 10.)

The elephant when feeding at large
ordinarily drinks water, but when undergoing the fatigues of war is allowed
wine,—not that sort, however, which comes from the grape, but another which is
prepared from rice.a The attendants even go in advance of their
elephants and gather them flowers; for they are very fond of sweet perfumes, and
they are accordingly taken out to the meadows, there to be trained under the
influence of the sweetest fragrance. The animal selects the flowers according to
their smell, and throws them as they are gathered into a basket which is held
out by the trainer. This being filled, and harvest-work, so to speak, completed,
he then bathes, and enjoys his bath with all the zest of a consummate
voluptuary. On returning from bathing he is impatient to have his flowers, and
if there is delay in bringing them he begins roaring, and will not taste a
morsel of food till all the flowers he gathered are placed before him. Thisdone,
he takes the flowers out of the basket with his trunk and scatters them over the
edge of his [S. 118] manger, and makes by this device their fine scent be, as it
were, a relish to his food. He strews also a good quantity of them as litter
over his stall, for he loves to have his sleep made sweet and pleasant.

a
Called arak,
(which, however, is also applied to tāḍi) ; rum is now-a-days the beverage
given it.

The Indian elephants were nine cubits in
height and five in breadth. The largest elephants in all the land were those
called the Praisian, and next to these the Taxilan.a

a
This fragment is ascribed to Megasthenēs both on account of the matter of
it, and because it was undoubtedly from Megasthenēs that Aelian borrowed the
narrative preceding it (Fragm. xxxviii.) and that following it (Fragm.
xxxv.).—Schwanheck.

FRAGM. LIII.

Aelian, Hist Anim. III. 46.

Of a White Elephant.

(Cf. Fragm. xxxvi. 11, xxxvii. 11.)

An Indian elephant-trainer fell in with a
white elephant-calf, which he brought when still quite young to his home, where
lie reared it, and gradually made it quite tame and rode upon it. He became much
attached to the creature, which loved him in return, and by its affection
requited him for its maintenance. Now the king of the Indians, having heard of
this elephant, wanted to take it ; but the owner, jealous of the love it had for
him, and grieving much, no doubt, to think that another should become its
master, refused to give it away, and made off at once to the [S. 119]
desert mounted on his favourite. The king was enraged at this, and sent men in
pursuit, with orders to seize the elephant, and at the same time to bring back
the Indian for punishment. Overtaking the fugitive they attempted to execute
their purpose, but he resisted and attacked his assailants from the back of the
elephant, which in the affray fought on the side of its injured master. Such was
the state of matters at the first, but afterwards, when the Indian on being
wounded slipped down to the ground, the elephant, true to his salt, bestrides
him as soldiers in battle bestride a fallen comrade, whom they cover with their
shields, kills many of the assailants, and puts the rest to flight. Then twining
his trunk around his rearer he lifted him on to his back, and carried him home
to thestall, and remained with him like a faithful friend with his friend, and
showed him every kind attention.a [O men! how base are ye! ever
dancing merrily when ye hear the music of the frying-pan, ever revelling in the
banquet, but traitors in the hour of danger, and vainly and for nought sullying
the sacred name of friendship.] [S. 120]

a
Compare the account given in Plutarch's
Life of Alexander,
of the elephant of Pōros:—"This elephant during
the whole battle gave extraordinary proofs of his sagacity and care of the
king's person. As long as that prince was able to fight, he defended him
with great courage, and repulsed all assailants; and when he perceived him
ready to sink under the multitude of darts, and the wounds with hich he was
covered, to prevent his falling off he kneeled down in the softest manner,
and with his proboscis gently drew every dart out of his body."

There is among the Brachhmans in India a
sect of philosophers who adopt an independent life, and abstain from animal food
and all victuals cooked by fire, being content to subsist upon fruits, which
they do not so much as gather from the trees, hut pick up when they have dropped
to the ground, and their drink is the water of the river Tagabena.a
Throughout life they go about naked, saying that the body has been given by the
Deity as a covering for the soul.b They hold that God is light,c
but not such light as we see [S. 121] with the eye, nor such as the sun or
fire, but God is with them the Word,—by which term they do not mean articulate
speech, but the discourse of reason, whereby the hidden mysteries of knowledge
are discerned by the wise. This light, however, which they call the Word, and
think to be God, is, they say, known only by the Brachhmans them selves, because
they alone have discarded vanity,d which is the outermost covering of
the soul. The members of this sect regard death with contemptuous indifference,
and, as we have seen already, they always pronounce the name of the Deity with a
tone of peculiar reverence, and adore him with hymns. They neither have wives
nor beget children. Persons who desire to lead a life like theirs cross over
from the other side of the river, and remain with them for good, never returning
to their own country. These also are called Brachhmans, although they do not
follow the same mode of life, for there are women in the country, from whom the
native inhabitants are sprung, and of these women they beget offspring. With
regard to the Word, which they call God, they hold that it is corporeal, and
that it wears the body as its external covering, just as [S. 122] one wears the
woollen surcoat, and that when it divests itself of the body with which it is
enwrapped it becomes manifest to the eye. There is war, the Brachhmans hold, in
the body wherewith they are clothed, and they regard the body as being the
fruitful source of wars, and, as we have already shown, right against it like
soldiers in battle contending against the enemy. They maintain, moreover, that
all men are held in bondage, like prisoners of war,e to their own
innate enemies, the sensual appetites, gluttony, anger, joy, grief, longing
desire, and such like, while it is only the man who has triumphed over these
enemies who goes to God. Dandamis accordingly, to whom Alexander the Makedonian
paid a visit, is spoken of by the Brachhmans as a god because he conquered in
the warfare against the body, and on the other hand they condemn Kalanos as one
who had impiously apostatized from their philosophy. The Brachhmans, therefore,
when they have shuffled off the body, see the pure sunlight as fish see it when
they spring up out of the water into the air. [S. 123]

a
Probably the Sanskrit Tungaveṇā, now the Tungabhadra, a large affluent of
the Kṛishṇā.

b Vide Ind. Ant.. V. p. 12S,
note. A doctrine of the Vedānta school of philosophy, according to which the
soul is incased as in a sheath, or rather a succession of sheaths. The first or
inner case is the intellectual one, composed of the sheer and simple elements
uncombined, and consisting of the intellect joined with the five senses. The
second is the mental sheath, in which mind is joined with the preceding, or, as
some hold, with the organs of action. The third comprises these organs and the
vital faculties, and is called the organic or vital case. These three sheaths (kośa) constitute the subtle frame which attends the soul in
its transmigrations. The exterior case is composed of the coarse elements
combined in certain proportions, and is called the gross body. See Colebrooke's Essay on the Philosophy of the Hindus, Cowell's ed. pp. 895-6.

c The affinity between God and
light is the burden of the Gāyatrī or holiest verse of the Veda.

dκενοδοξια, which probably translates ahankāra,
literally 'egotism,' and hence 'self-consciousness,' the peculiar and
appropriate function of which is selfish conviction, that is, a belief that in
perception and meditation 'I' am concerned; that the objects of sense concern
Me—in short, that I AM. The knowledge, however, which comes from comprehending
that Being which has self-existence completely destroys the ignorance which says
'I am.'

e
Compare Plato,
Phaedo, cap. 32, where Sokratēs speaks of the soul as at present
confined in the body as in a species of prison. This was a doctrine of the
Pythagoreans, whose philosophy, even in its most striking peculiarities,
hears such a close resemblance to the Indian as greatly to favour the
supposition that it was directly borrowed from it. There was even a
tradition that Pythagoras had visited India.

FRAGM. LV.

Pallad, de Bragmanibus, pp,8, 20
et seq. ed. Londin. 1668.

(Camerar. libell. gnomolog.
pp. 116, i24
et seq.) "

Of Kalanos and Mandanis.

(Cf. Fragm. xli. 19, xliv., xlv.)

They (the Bragmanes) subsist upon such
fruits as they can find, and on wild herbs, which the earth spontaneously
produces, and drink only water. They wander about in the woods, and sleep at
night on pallets of the leaves of trees. . . .

"Kalanos , then, your false friend, held
this opinion, but he is despised and trodden upon by us. By you, however,
accomplice as he was in causing many evils to you all, he is honoured and
worshipped, while from our society he has been contemptuously cast out as
unprofitable. And why not ? when everything which we trample under foot is an
object of admiration to the lucre-loving Kalanos, your worthless friend,
but no friend of ours,—a miserable creature, and more to be pitied than the
unhappiest wretch, for by setting his heart on lucre he wrought the perdition of
his soul ! Hence he seemed neither worthy of us, nor worthy of the friendship of
God, and hence he neither was content to revel away life in the woods beyond all
reach of care, nor was he cheered with the hope of a blessed hereafter: for by
his love of money he slew the very life of his miserable soul.

"We have, however, amongst us a sage called
Dandamis, whose home is the woods, where he [S. 124] lies on a pallet of leaves,
and where he has nigh at hand the fountain of peace, whereof he drinks, sucking,
as if were, the pure breast of a mother."

King Alexander, accordingly, when he heard
of all this, was desirous of learning the doctrines of the sect, and so he sent
for this Dandamis, as being their teacher and president ....

Onesikratēs was therefore despatched to
fetch him, and when he found the great sage he said, "Hail to thee, thou teacher
of the Bragmanes. The son of the mighty god Zeus, king Alexander, who is the
sovereign lord of all men, asks you to go to him, and if you comply, he will
reward you with great and splendid gifts, but if you refuse will cut off your
head."

Dandamis, with a complacent smile, heard him
to the end, but did not so much as lift up his head from his couch of leaves,
and while still retaininghis recumbent attitude returned this scornful
answer:—"God, the supreme king, is never the author of insolent wrong, but is
the creator of light, of peace, of life, of water, of the body of man, and of
souls, and these he receives when death sets them free, being in no way subject
to evil desire. He alone is the god of my homage, who abhors slaughter and
instigates no wars. But Alexander is not God, since he must taste of death ; and
how can such as he be the world's master, who has not yet reached the further
shore of the river Tiberoboas, and has not yet seated himself on a throne of
universal dominion ? Moreover, Alexander has [S. 125] neither as yet entered
living into Hades,a nor does he know the course of the sun through
the central regions of the earth, while the nations on its boundaries have not
so much as heard his name.b If his present dominions are not
capacious enough for his desire, let him cross the Ganges river, and he will
find a region able to sustain men if the country on our side be too narrow to
hold him. Know this, however, that what Alexander offers me, and the gifts he
promises, are all things to me utterly useless; but the things which I prize,
and find of real use and worth, are these leaves which are my house, these
blooming plants which supply me with dainty food, and the water which is my
drink, while all other possessions and things, which are amassed with anxious
care, are wont to prove ruinous to those who amass them, and cause only sorrow
and vexation, with which every poor mortal is fully fraught. But as for me, I
lie upon the forest leaves, and, having nothing which requires guarding, close
my eyes in tranquil slumber; whereas had I gold to guard, that would banish
sleep. The earth supplies me with everything, even as a mother her child with
milk. I go wherever I please, and there are no [S. 126] cares with which I am
forced to cumber myself against my will. Should. Alexander cut off my head, he
cannot also destroy my soul. My head alone, now silent, will remain, but the
soul will go away to its Master, leaving the body like a torn garment upon the
earth, whence also it was taken. I then, becoming spirit, shall ascend to my
God, who enclosed us in flesh, and left us upon the earth to prove whether when
here below we shall live obedient to Ids ordinances, and who also will require
of us, when we depart hence to his presence, an account of our life, since he is
judge of all proud wrong-doing ; for the groans of the oppressed become the
punishments of the oppressors.

"Let Alexander, then, terrify with these
threats those who wish for gold and for wealth, and who dread death, for against
us these weapons are both alike powerless, since the Bragmanes neither love gold
nor fear death. Go, then, and tell Alexander this: 'Dandamis has no need of
aught that is yours, and therefore will not go to you, but if you want anything
from Dandamis come you to him.' "c

aζων εν αδοθ οθδεπω παρηλθεν. The Latin version has non
zonam Gadem transiit, "has not crossed the zone of Cadiz'

b The text here is so corrupt as
to be almost untranslatable. I have therefore rendered from the Latin, though
not quite closely.

c
"Others say, Dandamis entered into no discourse with the messengers, but
only asked 'why Alexander had taken so long a journey ?'" Plutarch's Alexander.

Alexander, on receiving from Onesikratēs a
report of the interview, felt a stronger desire than ever to see Dandamis , who,
though old and naked, was the only antagonist in whom he, the conqueror of many
nations, had found more than his match, &c. [S. 127]

They (the
Brachmans) eat what they find on the ground, such as leaves of trees and
wild herbs, like cattle ...

"Calanus is your friend, but he is despised
and trodden upon by us. He, then, who was the author of many evils among you, is
honoured-and worshipped by you; but since he is of no importance he is rejected
by us, and those things we certainly do not seek, please Calanus because of his
greediness for money. But he was not ours, a man such as has miserably injured
and lost his soul, on which account he is plainly unworthy to be a friend either
of God or of ours, nor has he deserved security among the woods in this world,
nor can he hope for the glory which is promised in the future."

When the emperor Alexander came to the
forests, he was not able to see Dandamis as he passed through. . . .

When, therefore, the above-mentioned
messenger came to Dandamis, he addressed him thus:—" The emperor Alexander, the
son of the great Jupiter, who is lord of the human race, has ordered that you
should hasten to him, for if you come, he will give you many gifts, but if you
refuse he will behead you as a punishment for your contempt." When these words
came to the ears of Dandamis, he rose not from his leaves whereon he lay, but
reclining and smiling he replied in this way:—"The greatest God," he said, "can
do injury to no one, but [S. 128] restores again the light of life to those who
have departed. Accordingly he, alone is my lord who forbids murder and excites
no wars. But Alexander is no God, for he himself will have to die. How, then,
can he be the lord of all, who has not yet crossed the river Tyberoboas, nor has
made the whole world his abode, nor crossed the zone of Gades, nor has beheld
the course of the sun in the centre of the world ? Therefore many nations do not
yet even know his name. If, however, the country he possesses cannot contain
him, let him cross our river and he will find a soil which is able to support
men. All those things Alexander promises would be useless to me if he gave them:
I have leaves for a house, live on the herbs at hand and water to drink; other
things collected with labour, and which perish and yield nothing but sorrow to
those seeking them or possessing them,—these I despise. I therefore now rest
secure, and with closed eyes I care for nothing. If I wish to keep gold, I
destroy my sleep ; Earth supplies me with everything, as a mother does to her
child. Wherever I wish to go, I proceed, and wherever I do not wish to be, no
necessity of care can force me to go. And if he wish to cut off my head, he
cannot take my soul; he will only take the fallen head, but the departing soul
will leave the head like a portion of some garment, and will restore it to
whence it received it, namely, to the earth. But when I shall have become a
spirit I shall ascend to God, who has enclosed it within this flesh. When he did
this he wished to try us, how, after leaving him, we would live in this world.
And afterwards, when [S. 129] we shall have returned to him, he will demand from
us an account of this life. Standing by him I shall see my injury, and shall
contemplate his judgment on those who injured me: for the sighs and groans of
the injured become the punishments of the oppressors.

"Let Alexander threaten with this them that
desire riches or fear death, both of which I despise. For Brachmans neither love
gold nor dread death. Go, therefore, and tell Alexander this: -- "Dandamis seeks
nothing of yours, but if you think you need something of his, disdain not to go
to him.'"

When Alexander heard these words through the
interpreter, he wished the more to see such a man, since he, who had subdued
many nations, was overcome by an old naked man, &c.

FRAGM. LVI.

Plin. Hist. Nat. YI.
21. S-23. 11.

List of the Indian Races.a

a This list Pliny has
borrowed, for the most part from Megasthenēs. Cf. Schwanbeck, pp. 16 seq.,
57 seq.

The other journeys made thence
(from the Hyphasis) for Seleukos Nikator are as follows:—168 miles to the
Hesidrus, and to the river Jomanes as many (some copies add 5 miles) ; from
thence to the Ganges 112 miles. 119 miles to Rhodopha (others give 325 miles for
this distance). To the town Kalinipaxa 167-—500. Others give 265 miles. Thence
to the confluence of the Jomanes and Ganges 625 miles (many add 13 [S. 130]
miles), and to the town Palimbothra 425. To the mouth of the Ganges 738 miles.a
[S. 131]

a According to the MSS. 688
or 637 miles. The places mentioned in this famous itinerary all lay on the
Royal Road, which ran from the Indus to Palibothra. They have been thus
identified. The Hesidrus is now the Satlej, and the point of departure lay
immediately below its junction with the Hyphasis (now the Biās). The
direct route thence (via Ludhiānā, Sirhind, and Ambālā) conducted the
traveller to the ferry of the Jomanes, now the Jamnā, in the neighbourhood
of the present Bureah, whence the road led to the Ganges at a point which,
to judge from the distance given (113 miles), must have been near the site
of the far-famed Hastinapura. The next stage to be reached was Rhodopha, the
position of which, both its name and its distance from the Ganges (119
miles) combine to fix at Dabhai, a small town about 12 miles to the south of
Anupshahr. Kalinipaxa, the nest stage, Mannert and Lassen would identify
with Kanauj (the Kanyākubja of Sanskrit); but M. de St.-Martin, objecting to
this that Pliny was not likely to have designated so important and so
celebrated a city by so obscure an appellation, finds a site for it in the
neighbourhood on the banks of the Ikshumati, a river of Panchāla mentioned
in the great Indian poems. This river, he remarks, must also have been
called the Kalinadī, as the names of it still in current use, Kalinī and
Kalindri, prove. Now, as 'paxa' transliterates the Sanskrit 'paksha,' a
side,
Kalinipaxa, to judge from its name, must designate a town lying near the
Kalinadī

The figures which represent the
distances have given rise to much dispute, some of them being inconsistent
either with others, or with the real distances. The text, accordingly, has
generally been supposed to be corrupt, so far at least as the figures are
concerned. M. de St.-Martin, however, accepting the figures nearly as they
stand, shows them to be fairly correct. The first difficulty presents itself
in the words, "Others give
325 miles for this distance"
By 'this distance' cannot be meant the distance between the Ganges
and Rhodopha, but between the Hesidrus and Rhodopha, which the addition of
the figures shows to be 399 miles. The shorter estimate of others (325
miles) measures the length of a more direct route by way of Paṭiālā,
Thaneśvara, Panipat, and Dehli. The next difficulty has probably been
occasioned by a corruption of the text. It lies in the words "Ad Calinipaxa
oppidum CLXVTI. D. Alii CCLXV. mill." The numeral D has generally been taken
to mean 500 paces, or half a Roman mile, making the translation run
thus:—"To Kalinipaxa

167½ miles.' Others give 365
miles." But M. de St..Martin prefers to think that the D has, by some
mangling of the text, been detached from the beginning of the second number,
with which it formed the number DLXV., and been appended to the first, being
led to this conclusion on finding that the number 565 sums up almost to a
nicety the distance from the Hesidrus to Kalinipaxa, as thus :—

From the Hesidrus to the Jomanes 168
miles.
From the Jomanes to the Ganges......... 112 „
From the Ganges to Rhodopha 119 „.
From Rhodopha. to Kalinipaxa 167 ... „.

Total... 566 miles.

Pliny's carelessness in confounding
total with partial distances has created the next difficulty, which lies in
his stating that the distance from Kalinipaxa to the confluence of the
Jomanes and the Ganges is 625 miles, while in reality it is only about 227.
The figures may be corrupt, but it is much more probable that they represent
the distance of some stage on the route remoter from the confluence of the
rivers than Kalinipaxa. This must have been the passage of the Jomanes, for
the distance—

From the Jomanes to the Ganges is ...
112 miles.
Thence to Rhodopha 119 „
Thence to Kalinipaxa 167 „
Thence to the confluence of the rivers. 227 „

Total... 625 miles.

This is exactly equal to 5000 stadia,
the length of the Indian Mesopotamia or Doāb, the Panchāla of Sanskrit
geography, and the Antarveda of lexicographers.

Pliny assigns 425 miles as the distance
from the confluence of the rivers to Palibothra, but, as it is in reality
only 248, the figures have probably been altered. He gives, lastly, 688
miles as the distance from Palibothra to the mouth of the Ganges, which
agrees closely with the estimate of Megasthenēs, who makes it 5000
stadia.—if that indeed was his estimate, and not 8000 stadia as Strabo in
one passage alleges it was. The distance by land from Paṭnā to Tamluk (Tamralipta,
the old port of the Ganges mouth) is 445 English or 480 Roman miles. The
distance by the river, which is sinuous, is of course much greater. See Étude sur le Géographie Grecque et Latine de l'Inde, par P. V. de Saint-Martin, pp. 271-278.

The races which we may enumerate without
being tedious, from the chain of Emodus, of which [S. 132] a spur is called
Imauss (meaning in the native language
snowy),aare the Isari, Cosyri, Izgi, and on the hills the Chisiotosagi,b
and [S. 133] the Brachmansae, a name comprising many tribes, among which are the
Maccocalingae.c
[S. 134] The river Prinasd and the Cainas (which flows into the
Ganges) are both navigable.e The tribes called Calingae are nearest
the sea, and higher up are the Mandei, and the Malli in whose [S. 135] country
is Mount Mallus, the boundary of all that district being the Ganges.

a By Emodus was generally
designated that part of the Himalayan range which extended along Nepal and
Bhutan and onward toward the ocean. Other forms of the name are Emoda,
Emodon, Hemodes. Lassen derives the word front the Sanskrit
haimavata, in Prak|it haimota, 'snowy'. If this be so, Hemodus is the
more correct form. Another derivation refers the word to 'Hemādri' (hema,
'gold,' and adri, 'mountain'), the 'golden mountains,'—so called either
because they were thought to contain gold mines, or because of the aspect
they presented when their snowy peaks reflected the golden effulgence of
sunset. Imaus represents the Sanskrit himavata, 'snowy.' The name was
applied at first by the Greeks to the Hindut Kush and the Himalayas, but was
in course of time transferred to the Bolor range. This chain, which runs
north and south, was regarded by the ancients as dividing Northern Asia into
'Skythia intra Imaum' and ' Skythia extra Iniaum,' and it has formed for
ages the boundary between China and Turkestan.

b
These four tribes were located somewhere in Kaśmīr or its immediate
neighbourhood. The Isari are unknown, but are probably the same as the
Brysari previously mentioned by Pliny. The Cosyri are easily to be
identified with the Khas

īra
mentioned in the
Mahābhārata as neighbours of the Daradas and Kaśmīras. Their name, it has been
conjectured, survives in
Khāchar, one of the three great divisions of the Kāṭhīs of Gujarāt,
who appear to have come originally from the Panjāb. The Izgi are mentioned
in Ptolemy, under-the name of the Sizyges, as a people of Sērikē. This is,
however, a mistake, as they inhabited the alpine region which extends above
Kaśmīr towards the north and north-west. The Chisiotosagi or Chirotosagi are
perhaps identical with the Chiconae (whom Pliny elsewhere mentions), in
spite of the addition to their name of 'sagi,' which may have merely
indicated them to be a branch of the Śākas,—that is, the Skythians,—by whom
India was overrun before the time of its conquest by the Aryans. They are
mentioned in Manu X. 44 together with the Pauṇḍrakas, Odras, Drāviḍas,
Kāmbojas, Yavanas, Paradas, Pahlavas, Chīnas, Kīratas, Daradas, and Khaśas.
If Chirotosagi be the right reading of their name, there can be little doubt
of their identity with the Kīratas.—See P. V. de St.-Martin's work already
quoted, pp. 195-197. But for the
Khāchars, see
Ind. Ant. vol. IV. p. 323.

c v. l. Bracmanae. Pliny at
once transports his readers from the mountains of Kaśmīr to the lower part
of the valley of the Ganges. Here he places the Brachmanae, whom he takes to
be, not what they actually were, the leading caste of the population, but a
powerful race composed of many tribes—the Maccocalingae being of the number.
This tribe, as well as the Gangaridae-Kalingae, and the Modogalingae
afterwards mentioned, are subdivisions of the Kalingae, a widely diffused
race, which spread at one time from the delta of the Ganges all along the
eastern coast of the peninsula, though afterwards they did not extend
southward beyond Orissa. In the
Mahābhārata they are mentioned as occupying, along with the Vangas
(from whom Bengal is named) and three other leading tribes, the region which
lies between Magadha and the sea. The Maccocalingae, then, are the
Magha of the Kalingae. "Magha," says M. de St.-Martin, "is the name
of one-of the non-Aryan tribes of greatest importance and widest diffusion
in the lower Gangetic region, where it is broken up into several special
groups extending from Arakan and Western Asam, where it is found under the
name of
Mogh (Anglice
Mugs), as far as to the Māghars of the central valleys of Nepāl,
to the
Maghayas, Magahis, or
Maghyas of Southern Bahār (the ancient Magadha), to the ancient
Magra of Bengal, and to the Magora of Orissa. These last, by their
position, may properly be taken to represent our Maccocalingae." "The
Modogalingae," continues the same author, "find equally their
representatives in the ancient
Mada, a colony which the Book of Manu mentions in his
enumeration of the impure tribes of Āryāvarta, and which he names by the
side of the Āndhra, another people of the lower Ganges. The Monghyr
inscription, which belongs to the earlier part of the 8th century of our
era, also names the
Meda as a low tribe of this region (As.Res. vol. I. p.
126, Calcutta, 1788), and, what is remarkable, their name is found joined to
that of the Andhra (Andharaka), precisely as in the text of Manu. Pliny
assigns for their habitation a large island of the Ganges; and the word
Galinga (for Kalinga), to which their name is attached, necessarily places
this island towards the sea-board—perhaps in the Delta,."

The Gangaridae or Gangarides occupied
the region corresponding roughly with that now called Lower Bengal, and
consisted of various indigenous tribes, which in the course of time became
more or less Aryanized. As no word is found in Sanskrit to which their name
corresponds, it has been supposed of Greek invention (Lassen,
Ind. Alt. vol. II. p. 201), but erroneously, for it must have been
current at the period of the Makedonian invasion : since Alexander, in reply
to inquiries regarding the south country, was informed that the region of
the Ganges was inhabited by two principal nations, the Prasii and the
Gangarīdae. M. de St.-Martin thinks that their name has been preserved
almost identically in that of the Gonghrīs of South Bahār, whose traditions
refer their origin to Tirhūt; and he would identify their royal city
Parthalis (or
Portalis) with Varddhana (contraction of Yarddhamāna), now Bardwān.
Others, however, place it, as has been elsewhere stated, on the Mahānadī. In
Ptolemy their capital is Gangē, which must have been situated near where
Calcutta now stands. The Gangarides are mentioned by Virgil,
Georg. III.
27:—

" High o'er the gate in elephant and
gold
The crowd shall Caesar's Indian war behold."

(Dryden's translation.)

d v. 1. Pumas. The Prinas is
probably the Tāmasā or Tonsa, which in the Purāṇas is called the Parṇāśā.
The Cainas, notwithstanding the objections of Schwanbeck, must be identified
with the Cane, which is a tributary of the Jamnā.

e
For the identification of these, and other affluents of the Ganges see
Notes on Arrian, a. iv., Ind. Ant
vol V. p. 331.

(22.) This river, according to some, rises
from uncertain sources, like the Nile,a and inundates similarly the
countries tying along its course; others say that it rises on the Skythian
mountains, and has nineteen tributaries, of which, besides those already
mentioned, the Condochates, Erannoboas,b Cosoagus, and Sonus are
navigable. Others again assert that it issues forth at once with loud roar from
its fountain, and after tumbling down a steep and rocky channel is received
immediately on reaching the level plains into a lake, whence it flows out with a
gentle current, being at the narrowest eight miles, and on the average a hundred
stadia, in breadth, and never of less depth than twenty paces (one hundred feet)
in the final part of its course, which is through the country of the Gangarides.
The royalc city of the Calingae is called Parthalis. Over their king
60,000 foot-soldiers, [S. 136] 1000d horsemen, 700 elephants keep
watch and ward in "procinct of war."

a For an account of the
different theories regarding the source of the Ganges sec Smith's
Dict. of Class. Geog.

b Condochatem, Erannoboam.—v.
l. Canucham (Vamam), Erranoboan.

c
regia.—v. l. regio. The common reading,
however—"Gangaridum Calingarum. Regia," &c, makes the Gangarides a branch of
the Kalingae. This is probably the correct reading, for, as General
Cunningham states
(Anc. Geog. of Ind. pp. 518-519), certain inscriptions speak of 'Tri-
Kalinga.,' or 'the Three Kalingas.' "The name of Tri-Kalinga," he adds, "is
probably old, as Pliny mentions the
Macco-Calingae
and the
Gangarides-Calingae as separate peoples from the Calingae, while the
Mahābhārata names the Kalingas three separate times, and each time in
conjunction with different peoples." (H. H. Wilson in
Vishṇu Purāṇa, 1st ed. pp.185, 187 note, and 188.) As Tri-Kalinga thus
corresponds with the great province of Telingāna, it seems probable that the
name of Telingāna may be only a slightly contracted form of Tri-Kalingāna,
or ' the Three Kalingas.'

dLX. mill.—v.l. LXX. mill.

For among the more civilized Indian
communities life is spent in a great variety of separate occupations. Some till
the soil, some are soldiers, some traders ; the noblest and richest take part in
the direction of state affairs, administer justice, and sit in council with the
kings. A fifth class devotes itself to the philosophy prevalent in the country,
which almost assumes the form of a religion, and the members always put an end
to their life by a voluntary death on a burning funeral pile.a In
addition to these classes there is one half-wild, which is constantly engaged in
a task of immense labour, beyond the power of words to describe—that of hunting
and [S. 137] taming elephants. They employ these animals in ploughing and for
riding on, and regard them as forming the main part of their stock in battle.
They employ them in war and in fighting for their country. In choosing them for
war, regard is had to their age, strength, and size.

a Lucian, in his satirical
piece on the death of Peregrīnos (cap. 25), refers to this practice:—" But
what is the motive which prompts this man (Peregrīnos) to fling himself into
the flames ? God knows it is simply that he may show off how he can endure
pain as do the Brachmans, to whom it pleased Theagenēs to liken him, just as
if India had not her own crop of fools and vain-glorious persons. But let
him by all means imitate the Brachmans, for, as Onesikritos informs us, who
was the pilot of Alexander's fleet and saw Kalanos burned, they do not
immolate themselves by leaping into the flames, but when the pyre is made
they stand close beside it perfectly motionless, and suffer themselves to be
gently broiled; then decorously ascending the pile they are burned to death,
and never swerve, even ever so little, from their recumbent position."

There is a very large island in the Ganges
which is inhabited by a single tribe called Modogalingae.a Beyond are
situated theModubae, Molindae, the Uberae with a handsome town of the same name, the
Galmodroësi , Preti, Calissae,b Sasuri , Passalae , Colubae, Orxulae,
Abali, Taluctae.c The king of [S. 138] these keeps under arms 50,000
foot-soldiers,4000d
cavalry, and 400 elephants. Next come the Andarae,e still more
powerful race, which possesses numerous villages, and thirty towns defended by
walls and towers, and which supplies its king with an army of 100,000 infantry,
2000 cavalry, and 1000 elephants. Gold is very abundant among the Dardae, and
silver among the Setae.f
[S. 139]

a vv. ll. modo Galingam,
Modogalicam.

bCalissae.-v.l..
Aclissae.

c
These tribes were chiefly located in the regions between the left bank of
the Ganges and the Himālayas. Of the Galmodroësi, Preti, Calissae, Sasuri,
and Orxulae nothing is known, nor can their names be identified with any to
be found in Sanskrit literature. The Modubae represent beyond doubt the
Moutiba, a people mentioned in the Aitareya-
Brāhmaṇa along with other non-Aryan tribes which occupied the
country north of the Ganges at the time when the Brahmans established their
first settlements in the country. The Molindae are mentioned as the Malada
in the Purāṇic lists, but no further trace of them is met with. The Uberae
must be referred to the Bhars, a numerous race spread over the central
districts of the region spoken of, and extending as far as to Assam. The
name is pronounced differently in different districts, and variously
written, as Bors or Bhors, Bhowris, Barriias and Bhārhīyas, Bareyas, Baoris,
Bharais, &c. The race, though formerly powerful, is now one of the lowest
classes of the population. The Passalae are identified as the inhabitants of
Panchāla, which, as already stated, was the old name of the Doāb. The
Colubae respond to the Kāulūta or Kolūta—mentioned in the 4th book of the
Rāmāyaṇa, in the enumeration of the races of the west, also in the
Varāha Saṃhitā in
the list of the people of the northwest, and in the Indian drama called the
Mudra Rākshasa, of which the hero is the well-known Chandragupta.
They were settled not far from the Upper Janmā. About the middle of the 7th
century they were visited by the famous Chinese traveller Hiwen-Thsāng, who
-writes their name as Kiu-lu-to. Yule, however, places the Passalae in the
south-west of Tirhut, and the Kolubae on the Kondochates (Gandakī) in the
north-east of Gorakhpur and north-west of Sāran. The Abali answer perhaps to
the Gvallas or Halvaïs of South Bahār and of the hills which covered the
southern parts of the ancient Magadha. The Taluctae are the people of the
kingdom of Tāmralipta mentioned in the Mahābhārata. In the writings
of the Buddhists of Ceylon the name appears as Tanialitti, corresponding to
the Tamluk of the present day. Between these two forms of the name that
given by Pliny is evidently the connecting link. Tamluk lies to the
south-west of Calcutta, from which it is distant in a direct line about 35
miles. It was in old times the main emporium of the trade carried on between
Gangetic India and Ceylon.

d
IV. m.—v. l. III. M.

e
The Andarae are readily identified with the Andhra of Sanskrit—a great and
powerful nation settled originally in the Dekhan between the middle part of
the courses of the Godāvarī and the Kṛishṇā rivers, but which, before the
time of Megasthenēs, had spread their sway towards the north as far as the
upper course of the Narmadā (Nerbudda), and, as has been already indicated,
the lower districts of the Gangetic basin.
Vide Ind. Ant. vol. V. p. 170. For a notice of Andhra (the modern
Telingāna) see General Cunningham's
Anc. Geog. of Ind. pp. 527-530.

f
Pliny here reverts to where he started from in his enumeration of the
tribes. The Setae arc the Sāta or Sātaka of Sanskrit geography, which
locates them in the neighbourhood of the Daradas.

But the Prasii surpass in power and glory
every other people, not only in this quarter, but one may say in all India,
their capital being Palibothra, a very large and wealthy city, after which some
call the people itself the Palibothri,—nay, even the whole tract along the
Ganges. Their king has in his pay a standing army of 600,000 foot-soldiers,
30,000 cavalry, and 9000 elephants : whence may be formed some conjecture as to
the vastness of his resources.

After these, but more inland, are the
Monedes and Suari,a in whose country is Mount Maleus, on which
shadows fall towards the north in winter, and towards the south in summer, for
six months alternately.b Baeton asserts that the north pole in these
parts is seen but once in the year, and only for fifteen days; while Megasthenēs
says that the same thing happens in many parts of India. The south pole is
called by the Indians Dramasa . The river Jomanes flows through the Palibothri
into the Ganges between the towns Methora and Carisobora.c In the [S.
140] parts which lie southward from the Ganges the inhabitants, already swarthy,
are deeply coloured by the sun, though not scorched black like the Ethiopians.
The nearer they approach the Indus the more plainly does their complexion betray
the influence of the sun.

a The Monedes or Mandei are
placed by Yule about Gangpur, on the upper waters of the Brāhmaṇī, S.W. of
Chhutia Nāgpur. Lassen places them S. of the Mahānadī about Sonpur, where
Yule has the Suari or Sabarae, the Śavara of Sanskrit authors, which Lassen
places between Sonpur and Singhbhūm. See
Ind. Ant. vol. VI. note §,p. 127.

b This, of course, can only
occur at the equator, from which the southern extremity of India is about
500 miles distant.

c
Palibothri must denote here the subjects of the realm of which Palibothra
was the capital, and not merely the inhabitants of that city, as Rennel and
others supposed, and so fixed its site at the confluence of the Ganges and
Jamunā. Methora is easily identified with Mathurā. Carisobora is read
otherwise as Chrysobon, Cyrisoborca, Cleisoboras. "This city" says General
Cunningham, "has not yet been identified, but I feel satisfied that it must
be
Vrindāvana, 16
miles to the north of Mathurā.
Vridāvana means
'the grove of the basil-trees,' which is famed all over India as the scene
of Kṛishṇa's sports with the milkmaids. But the earlier name of the place
was
Kālikavārtta,
or ' Kalika's whirlpool.' . . . Now the Latin
name of Clisobora is also written Carisobora
and Cyrisoborka in different MSS.,
from which I infer that the original spelling was
Kalisoborka, or, by a slight change of two letters,
Kalikoborta or
Kālikābarta." Anc. Geog. of Ind. p. 875.

The Indus skirts the frontiers of the
Prasii, whose mountain tracts are said to be inhabited by the Pygmies.a
Artemidorusb sets down the distance between the two rivers at 121
miles.

a Vide Ind. Ant
vol. V I . p. 133, note f.—ED.
Ind. Ant,

b A Greek geographer of Ephesus,
whose date is about 100 B.C. His valuable work on geography, called a Periplūs, was much quoted by the ancient writers, but with the
exception of some fragments is now lost.

(23.) The Indus, called by the inhabitants
Sindus, rising on that spur of Mount Caucasus which is called Paropamisus, from
sources [S. 141] fronting the sunrise,a receives also itself nineteen
rivers, of which the most famous are the Hydaspes, which has four tributaries;
the Cantabra,b which has three ; the Acesines and the Hypasis, which
are both navigable; but nevertheless, having no very great supply of water, it
is nowhere broader than fifty stadia, or deeper than fifteen paces,c
It forms an extremely large island, which is called Prasiane, and a smaller one,
called Patale.d Its stream, which is navigable, by the lowest
estimates, for 1240 miles, turns westward as if following more or less closely
the course of the sun, and then falls into the ocean. The measure of the coast
line from the mouth of the Ganges to this river I shall set down as it is
generally given, though none of the computations agree with each other. From the
mouth of the Ganges to Cape Calingon and the town of Dandagulae 625
miles ;f
[S. 142] to Tropina 1225 ;g to the cape of Perimula,h
where there is the greatest emporium of trade in India, 750 miles to the town in
the island of Patala mentioned above, 620 miles.

a The real sources of the
Indus were unknown to the Greeks. The principal stream rises to the north of
the Kailāsa mountain (which figures in Hindu mythology as the mansion of the
gods and Śiva's paradise) in lat. 32°, long. 81° 30', at an elevation of
about 20,000 feet.

b
The Chandrabhaga or Akesinēs, now the Chenāb.

c
For remarks on the tributaries of the Indus see
Notes on Arrian, chap, iv,—Ind. Ant.
vol. V. pp. 331-333.

d
See
Ind. Ant. vol. V. p. 330. Yule identifies the former of these with
the area enclosed by the Nara from above Rohri to Haidarābād, and the delta
of the Indus.—ED. Ind. Ant.

f " Both the distance and the
name point to the great port town of coringa, as the promontory of
Coringon, which
is situated on a projecting point of land at the mouth of the Godāvarī
river. The town of
Dandaguda or
Da.ndagula
I take to be the Dantapura of the Buddhist chronicles, which as the
capital of Kalinga may with much probability be identified with Rāja
Mahendri, which is only 30 miles to the north-east of Coringa. From the
great similarity of the Greek
Γ and
Π, I think it notimprobable that
the Greek name may have been
Dandapula,
which is almost the same as
Dantapura. But in this case the Danta
or 'tooth-relic' of Buddha must have been enshrined in Kalinga as early as
the time of Pliny, which is confirmed by the statement of the Buddhist
chronicles that the 'left canine tooth' of Buddha was brought to Kalinga
immediately after his death, where it was enshrined by the reigning
sovereign, Brahmadatta."—Cunningham,
Geog.-p. 518.

g [Tropina answers to Tripontari
or Tirupanatara, opposite Kochin.—ED.
Ind. Ant.] The distance given is measured from the mouth of the Ganges,
and not from Cape Calingon.

h This cape is a projecting point
of the island of Perimula or Perimuda, now called the island of Salsette, near
Bombay.

The hill-tribes between the Indus and the
Iomanes are the Cesi; the Cetriboni, who live in the woods; then the Megallae,
whose king is master of five hundred elephants and an army of horse and foot of
unknown strength; the Chrysei, the Parasangae, and the Asangae,a
where tigers abound, noted for their ferocity. The force under arms consists of
30,000 foot, 300 elephants, and 800 horse. These are shut in by the Indus, and
are surrounded by a circle of mountains and deserts [S. 143] over a space of 625
miles.b Below the deserts are the Dari, the Surae, then deserts again
for 187 miles,c these deserts encircling the fertile tracts just as
the sea encircles islands.d Below these deserts we find the
Maltecorae, Singhae, Marohae, Rarungae, Moruni.e
These inhabit the hills which in an unbroken
[S. 144] chain run parallel to the shores of the ocean. They are free and have
no kings, and occupy the mountain heights, whereon they have built many cities.f
Next follow the Nareae, enclosed by the loftiest of Indian mountains, Capitalia.g
[S. 145] The inhabitants on the other side of this mountain work extensive
mines of gold and silver. Next are the Oraturae, whose king has only ten
elephants, though he has a very strong force of infantry.h
[S. 146] Next again are the Varetatae,i subject to a king, who keep
no elephants, but trust entirely to their horse and foot. Then the Odomboerae;
the Salabastrae;j the Horatae,k who have a fine city,
defended by marshes which serve as a ditch, wherein crocodiles are kept, which,
having a great avidity for human flesh, prevent all access to the city except by
a bridge. And another city [S. 147] of theirs is much admired—Automela,l
which, being seated on the coast at the confluence of five rivers, is a noble
emporium of traders The king is master of 1600 elephants, 150,000 foot, and 5000
cavalry. The poorer king of the Charmae has but sixty elephants, and his force
otherwise is insignificant. Next come the Pandae, the only race in India ruled
by women.m They say that Hercules having but one daughter, who was on
that account all the more beloved, endowed her with a noble kingdom. Her
descendants rule over 300 cities, and command an army of 150,000 foot and 500
elephants. Next, with 300 cities, the Syrieni, Derangae, Posingae, Buzae,
Gogiarei, Umbrae, Nereae, Brancosi, Nobundae , Cocondae, Nesei, Pedatrirae,
Solobriasae , Olostrae,n who adjoin the island Patale, from the [S.
148] furthest shore of which to the Caspian gates the distance is said to he
1925 miles.o

a
v. l. Asmagi. The Asangae, as placed doubtfully by Lassen about Jodhpur.—ED.
Ind. Ant,

b DCXXV.—v. l. DCXXXV. Pliny,
haying given a general account of the basins of the Indus and the Ganges,
proceeds to enumerate here the tribes which peopled the north of India. The
names are obscure, but Lassen has identified one or two of them, and de
Saint-Martin a considerable number more. The tribes first mentioned in the
list occupied the country extending from the Jamunā to the western coast
about the mouth of the Narmadā. The Cesi probably answer to the Khośas or
Khasyas, a great tribe which from time immemorial has led a wandering life
between Gujarāt, the lower Indus, and the Jamunā. The name of the Cetriboni
would seem to be a transcript of Ketrivani (for Kshatrivaneya). They may
therefore have been a branch of the Kshatri (Khātri), one of the impure
tribes of the list of Manu (l. x. 12). The MegallAe must be identified with
the Māvelas of Sanskrit books, a great tribe described as settled to the
west of the Jamunā. The Chrysei probably correspond to the Karoncha of the
Purāṇic lists (Vishṇu Pur.
pp. 177, 186, note 13, and 351, &c). The locality occupied by these and
the two tribes mentioned after them must have lain to the north of the Raṇ,
between the lower Indus and the chain of the Arāvali mountains.

c
CLXXXVlI.—v. l. CLXXXVIII.

d
The Dhārs inhabit still the banks of the lower Ghara and the parts
contiguous to the valley of the Indus. Hiwen Thsāng mentions, however, a
land of Dara at the lower end of the gulf of Kachh, in a position which
quite accords with that which Pliny assigns to them. The Surae, Sansk. Śūra,
have their name preserved in "Saur," which designates a tribe settled along
the Lower Indus—the modern representatives of the Saurabhīra of the
Harivaṃśa. They are placed with doubt by Lassen on the Lonī about
Sindri, but Yule places the Bolingae—Sanskrit, Bhaulingas—there.—ED. Ind.
Ant.

e Moruni, &c.—v. l. Moruntes,
Masuae Pagungae, Lalii.

f These tribes must have been
located in Kachh, a mountainous tongue of land between the gulf of that name
and the Raṇ, where, and where only, in this region of India, a range of
mountains is to be found running along the coast. The name of the Maltecorae
has attracted particular attention because of its resemblance to the name of
the Martikhora
(i. e. man-eater), a fabulous animal mentioned by Ktēsias (Ctesiae
Tndica,
VII.) as found in India and subsisting upon human flesh. The Maltecorae
were consequently supposed to have been a race of cannibals. The
identification is, however, rejected by M. de St.-Martin. The Singhae are
represented at the present day by the Sānghis of Omarkot (called the Song by
Mac-Murdo), descendants of an ancient Rājput tribe called the Singhārs. The
Marohae are probably the Maruhas of the list of the
Varāha Saṃhitā, which was later than Pliny's time by four and a half
centuries. In the interval they were displaced, but the displacement of
tribes was nothing unusual in those days. So the Rarungae may perhaps be the
ancestors of the Ronghi or Rhanga now found on the anks of the Satlej and in
the neighbourhood of Dihli.

g
Capitalia is beyond doubt the sacred Arbuda, or Mount Abu, which, attaining
an elevation of 6500 feet, rises far above any other summit of the Arāvali
range. The name of the Nareae recalls that of the Naïr, which the Rājput
chroniclers apply to the northern belt of the desert (Tod,
Rajasthān, II.
211); so St.-Martin ; but; according to General Cunningham they must be the
people of Sarui, or 'the country of reeds, as
nar and
sar are synonymous terms for 'a reed,' and the country of Sarui is still
famous for its reed-arrows. The same author uses the statement that
extensive gold and silver mines were worked on the other side of Mount
Capitalia in support of his theory that this part of India was the Ophir of
Scripture, from which the Tyrian navy in the days of Solomon carried away
gold, a great plenty of almug-trees (red sandalwood), and precious stones (1
Kings xii.). His argument runs thus:—"The last name in Pliny's list is
Varetatae, which I would change to Vataretae by the transposition of two
letters. This spelling is countenanced by the termination of the various
reading of Svarataratae, which is found in some editions. It is quite
possible, however, that the Svarataratae may be intended for the Surāshṭras.
The famous Varāha Mihira mentions the Surāshṭras and Bādaras together,
amongst the people of the south-west of India (Dr. Kern's
Bṛihat Saṃhitā, XIV. 19.) These Bādaras must therefore be the people of
Badari, or Vaḍari. I understand the name of Vaḍari to denote a district
abounding in the
Badari, or Ber-tree (Jujube), which is very common in Southern
Rājputāna. For the same reason I should look to this neighbourhood for the
ancient Sauvīra, which I take to be the true form of the famous Sopbir, or
Ophir, as Sauvīra is only another name of the Vadari or Ber-tree, as well as
of its juicy fruit. Now, Sofir is the Coptic name of India at the present
day; but the name must have belonged originally to that part of the Indian
coast which was frequented by the merchants of the West. There can be little
doubt, I think, that this was in the Gulf of Khambay, which from time
immemorial has been the chief seat of Indian trade with the West. During the
whole period of Greek history this trade was almost monopolized by the
famous city of Barygaza, or Bhāroch, at the mouth of the Narmadā river.
About the fourth century some portion of it was diverted to the new capital
of Balabhi, in the peninsula of Gujarāt ; in the Middle Ages it was shared
with Khambay at the head of the gulf, and in modern times with Surat, at the
mouth of the Tapti. If the name of Sauvīra was derived, as I suppose, from
the prevalence of the Ber-tree, it is probable that it was only another
appellation for the province of Badari, or Edar, at the head of the Gulf of
Kharabay. This, indeed, is the very position in which we should expect to
find it, according to the ancient inscription of Rudra Dāma, which mentions
Sindhu-Sauvīra immediately after Surāshṭra and Bhārukachha, and just before
Kukura Aparanta,' and Nishada (Jour. Bo. Br. R.
As. Soc. VII. 120). According to this arrangement Sauvīra must
have been to the north of Surāshṭra and Bhāroch, and to the south of Nishada,
or just where I have placed it, in the neighbourhood of Mount Ābū. Much the
same locality is assigned to Sauvīra in to Vishṇu Purdāṇa."—Anc. Geog. of Ind.
pp. 496-497 see also pp. 560-562 of the same
work, where the subject is further discussed,

h
v. l. Oratae. The Oraturae find their representatives in the Rāṭhors, who
played a great part in the history of India before the Musulman conquest,
and who, though settled in the Gangetic provinces, regard Ajmir, at the
eastern point of the Arāwalī, as their ancestral seat.

i v. l. Suaratarataa. The
Varetatae cannot with certainty be identified.

j
The Odomboerae, with hardly a change in the form of their name, are
mentioned in Sanskrit-literature, for Pānini (IV-1, 173, quoted by Lassen,
Ind. Alt. 1st ed. I. p. 614) speaks of the territory of Udumbari as
that which was occupied by a tribe famous in the old legend, the Salva, who
perhaps correspond to the Salabastrae of Pliny, the addition which he has
made to their name being explained by the Sanskrit word
vastya, which means an abode or
habitation. The word udumbara means the glomerous fig-tree.
The district so named lay in Kachh. [The Salabastrae are located by Lassen
between the mouth of the Sarasvatī and Jodhpur, and the Horatae at the head
of the gulf of Khambhāt; Automela he places at Khambhāt. See
Ind. Alterth.
2nd ed. 1.760. Yule has the Sandrabatis about Chandravātī, in northern
Gujarāt, but these are placed by Lassen on the Banās about Tonk.—ED.
Ind. Ant.]

k Horatae is an incorrect
transcription of Soraṭh, the vulgar form of the Sanskrit
Saurāshṭra. The Horatae were therefore the inhabitants of the region
called in the
Periplūs, and
in Ptolemy, Surastrēnē—that is, Gujarāt. Orrhoth (

Ορροθα)
is used by Kosmas as the name of acity in the west of India, which has been
conjectured to beSurat, but Yule thinks it rather some place on the
Purbandarcoast. The capital, Automela, cannot be
identified,but de St.-Martin conjectures it may have been the
oncefamous Valabh, which was situated in the
peninsular partof Gujart at about 24 miles' distance from the
Gulf ofKhambay.

l
v. l. Automula. See preceding note.

m
The Chamae have been identified with the inhabitants of Charmamandala, a
district of the west mentioned in the
Mahābhārata and also in the Vishṇu Purāṇa under the form
Charmakhanda. They are now represented by the Charmārs or Chamārs of
Bundelkhand and the parts adjacent to the basin of the Ganges. The Pandae,
who were their next neighbours, must have occupied a considerable portion of
the basin of the river Chambal, called in Sanskrit geography the
Charmanvatī. They were a branch of the famous race of Pāṇḍu, which made for
itself kingdoms in several different parts of India.

n
The names in this list lead us to the desert lying between the Indus and the
Arāvalī range. Most of the tribes enumerated are mentioned in the lists of
the clans given in the Rājput chronicles, and have been identified by M. de
St.-Martin as follows :—The Syrieni are the Suriyanis, who under that name
have at all times occupied the country near the Indus in the neighbourhood
of Bakkar. Darangae is the Latin transcription of the name of the great race
of the Jhāḍejās, a branch of the Rājputs which at the present day possesses
Kachh. The Buzae represent the Buddas, an ancient branch of the same Jhāḍejs
(Tod,
Annals and Antiq, of the Rāj.
vol. I. p. 86). The Gogiarei (other readings Gogarasi,
Gogarse) are the Kokaris, who are now settled on the banks of the Ghara or
Lower Satlej. The Umbrae are represented by the Umranīs, and the Nerei
perhaps by the Nharonis, who, though belonging to Baluchistan, had their
ancestral seats in the regions to the east of the Indus. The Nubēteh, who
figure in the old local traditions of Sindh, perhaps correspond to the
Nobundae, while the Cocondae certainly are the Kokonadas mentioned in the
Mahābhārata among the people of the north-west. (See Lassen, Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenl. II. 1839, p. 45.) Buchanan mentions a tribe called
Kakand
as belonging to Gorakhpur.

o There were two defiles,
which went by the name of 'the Kaspian Gates.' One was in Albania, and was
formed by the jutting out of a spur of the Kaukasos into the Kaspian Sea.
The other, to which Pliny here refers, was a narrow pass leading from
North-Western Asia into the north-east provinces of Persia. According to
Arrian (Anab. III. 20) the Kaspian Gates lay a few days' journey
distant from the Median town of Rhagai, now represented by the ruins called
Rha, found a mile or two to the south of Teherān. This pass was one of the
most important places in ancient geography, and from it many of the
meridians were measured. Strabo, who frequently mentions it, states that its
distance from the extreme promontories of India (Cape Comorin, &c.) was
14,000 stadia.

Then next to these towards the Indus come,
in an order which is easy to follow, the Amatae, Bolingae, Gallitalutae , Dimuri,
Megari, Ordab ae,a Mesae ; after these the Uri and Sileni.b
Immediately beyond come [S. 149] deserts extending for 250 miles. These being
passed, we come to the Organagae, Abaortae, Sibarae, Suertae, and after these to
deserts as extensive as the former. Then come the Sarophages, Sorgae, Baraomatae,
and the Umbrittae,c who consist of twelve tribes, each possessing two
cities, and the Aseni, who possess three cities.d Their capital is
Bucephala, built where Alexander's famous horse [S. 150] of that name was
buried.e Hillmen follow next, inhabiting the base of Caucasus, the
Soleadae, and the Sondrae; and if we cross to the other side of the Indus and
follow its course downward we meet the Samarabriae, Sambruceni, Bisambritae;f
Osii, Antixeni, and the Taxillaeg with a famous city. Then succeeds
[S. 151] a level tract of country known by the general name of Amanda,h
whereof the tribes are four in number—the Peucolaitae,i Arsagalitae,
Geretae, Asoi.

a
v. l. Ardabae.

b In the grammatical apophthegms of Pāṇini, Bhaulingi is
mentioned as a territory occupied by a branch of the great tribe of the
Śālvas (Lassen, Ind. Alt. I. p. 613, note, or 2nd ed. p. 760 n.), and
from this indication M. de St.-Martin has been led to place the Bolingae at
the western declivity of the Arāvalī mountains, where Ptolemy also places
his Bolingae. The Madrabhujingha of the Panjāb (see
Vishṇu Pur. p. 187) were probably a branch of this tribe. The
Gallitalutae are identified by the same author with the Gahalata or Gehlots
; the Dimuri with the Dumras, who, though belonging to the Gangetie valley,
originally came from that of the Indus ; the Megari with the Mokars of the
Rājput chronicles, whose name is perhaps preserved in that of the Mehars of
the lower part of Sindh, and also in that of the Megharis of Eastern
Baluchistan; the Mesae with the Mazaris, a considerable tribe between
Shikārpūr and Mitankot on the western bank of the Indus ; and the Uri with
the Hauras of the same locality —the Hurairas who figure in the Rājput lists
of thirty-six royal tribes. The Sulalas of the same tribes perhaps represent
the Sileni, whom Pliny mentions along with the Uri.

c vv. ll. Paragomatae,
Umbitrae.—Baraomatae Gumbritaeque.

d
The tribes here enumerated must have occupied a tract of country lying above
the confluence of the Indus with the stream of the combined rivers of the
Panjab. They are obscure, and their names cannot with any certainty be
identified if we except that of the Sibarae, who are undoubtedly the
Sauvīras of the Mahābhārata, and who, as their name is almost
invariably combined with that of the Indus, must have dwelt not far from its
banks. The Afghan tribe of the Afridīs may perhaps represent the Abaortae,
and the Sarabhān or Sarvanīs, of the same stock, the Sarophages. The
Umbrittae and the Aseni take us to the east of the river. The former are
perhaps identical with the Ambastae of the historians of Alexander, and the
Ambasthas of Sanskrit writings, who dwelt in the neighbourhood of the lower
Akesinēs.

e Alexander, after the great
battle on the banks of the Hydaspes in which he defeated Pōros, founded two
cities—Bukephala or Bukepkalia, so named in honour of his celebrated
charger, and Nikaia, so named in honour of his victory. Nikaia, it is known
for certain, was built on the field of battle, and its position was
therefore on the left side of the Hydaspes—probably about where Mong now
stands. The site of Bukephala it is not so easy to determine. According to
Plutarch and Pliny it was near the Hydaspes, in the place where Bukephalos
was buried, and if that be so it must have been on the same side of the
river as the sister city; whereas Strabo and all the other ancient
authorities place it on the opposite side. Strabo again places it at the
point where Alexander crossed the river, whereas Arrian states t that it was
built on the site of his camp. General Cunningham fixes this at Jalālpur
rather than at Jhelam, 30 miles higher up the river, the site which is
favoured by Burnes and General Court and General Abbott. Jalālpur is about
ten miles distant from Dilāwar, where, according to Cunningham, the crossing
of the river was most probably effected.

f
v. l. Bisabritae.

g
The Soleadae and the Sondraa cannot be identified, and of the tribes which
were seated to the east of the Indus only the Taxillae are known. Their
capital was the famous Taxila, which was visited by Alexander the Great.
"The position of this city," says Cunningham, " has hitherto remained
unknown, partly owing to the erroneous distance recorded by Pliny, and
partly to the want of information regarding the vast ruins which still exist
in the vicinity of Shāh-dheri. All the copies of Pliny agree in stating that
Taxila was only 60 Roman, or 55 English, miles from Peucolaïtis or
Hashṭnagar, which would fix its site somewhere on the Haro river to the west
of Hasan Abdāl, or just two days' march from the Indus. But the itineraries
of the Chinese pilgrims agree in placing it at three days' journey to the
east of the Indus, or in the immediate neighbourhood of Kāla-ka-Sarāi. He
therefore fixes its site near Shāh-dheri (which is a mile to the north-cist
of that Sarāi), in the extensive ruins of a fortified city abounding with
stūpas, monasteries, and temples. From this place to Hashṭnagar
the distance is 74 miles English, or 10 in excess of Pliny's estimate.
Taxila represents the Sanskrit Takshaśilā, of which the Pali form is
Takhasila, whence the Greek form was taken. The word means either 'cut rock'
or ' severed head.'—Anc. Geog. of Ind. pp. 104-121.

h As the name Amanda is entirely unknown, M. de St.-Martin
proposes without hesitation the correction Gandhāra, on the ground that the
territory assigned to the Amanda corresponds exactly to Gandhāra, of which
the territory occupied by the Peucolitae (Poukolaōtis), as we know from
other writers, formed a part. The Geretae are beyond doubt no others than
the Gouraei of Arrian ; and the Asoi may perhaps be identical with the
Aspasii, or, as Strabo gives the name, Hippasii or Pasii. The Arsagalitae
are only mentioned by Pliny. Two tribes settled in the same locality are
perhaps indicated by the name—the Arsa, mentioned by Ptolemy, answering to
the Sanskrit Uraśa; and the Ghilit or Ghilghit, the Gahalata of Sanskrit,
formerly mentioned.

i v.
1. Peucolitae.

Many writers, however, do not give the river
Indus as the western boundary of India, but include within it four
satrapies,—the Gedrosi, Arachotae , Arii, Paropamisadae,a
[S. 152] making the river Cophes its furthest limit; though others prefer to
consider all these as belonging to the Arii.

a Gedrōsia comprehended
probably nearly the same district which is now known by the name of Mekrān.
Alexander marched through it on returning from his Indian expedition.
Arachōsia extended from the chain of mountains now called the Suleimān as
far southward as Gedrōsia. Its capital, Araehotos, was situated somewhere in
the direction of Kandahār, the name of which, it has been thought, preserves
that of Gandhāra. According to Colonel Rawlinson the name of Arachōsia is
derived from Harakhwati (Sanskrit Sarasvati),
and is preserved in the Arabic
Rakhaj. It is, as has already been noticed, the Harauvatas of the Bisutun
inscription. Aria denoted the country lying between Meshed and Herāt ;
Āriāna, of which it formed a part, and of which it is sometimes used as the
equivalent, was a wider district, which comprehended nearly the whole of
ancient Persia. In the Persian part of the Bisutun inscription Āria appears
as Hariva, in the Babylonian part as Arevan. Regarding Paropamisos and the
Cophes see Ind. Ant.
vol. V. pp. 329 and 830.

Many writers further include in India even
the city Nysa and Mount Merus, sacred to Father Bacchus, whence the origin of
the fable that he sprang from the thigh of Jupiter. They include also the
Astacani,a in whose country the vine [S. 153] grows abundantly, and
the laurel,

and
boxwood, and every kind of fruit-tree found in Greece. The remarkable and almost
fabulous accounts which are current regarding the fertility of its soil, and the
nature of its fruits and trees, its beasts and birds and other animals, will be
set down each in its own place in other parts of this work. A little further on
I shall speak of the satrapies, but the island of Taprobaneb requires
my immediate attention.

a
Other readings of the name are Aspagani and Aspagonae. M. de St.-Martin,
whose work has so often been referred to, says:—"We have seen already that
in an extract from old Hekataios preserved in Stephen of Byzantium the city
of Kaspapyros is called a Gandaric city, and that in Herodotos the same
place is attributed to the Paktyi, and we have added that in our opinion
there is only an apparent contradiction, because the district of Paktyikē
and Gandara may very well be but one and the same country. It is not
difficult, in fact, to recognize in the designation mentioned by Herodotos
the indigenous name of the Afghān people, Pakhtu (in the plural Pakhtūn),
the name which the greater part of the tribes use among themselves, and the
only one they apply to their national dialect. We have here, then, as Lassen
has noticed, historical proof of the presence of the Afghāns in their actual
fatherland five centuries at least before the Christian era. Now, as the
seat of the Afghān or Pakht nationality is chiefly in the basin of the
Kophēs, to the west of the Indus, which forms its eastern boundary, this
further confirms what we have already seen, that it is to the west of the
great river we must seek for the site of the city of Kaspapyros or
Kaśyapapura, and consequently of the Gandariē of Hekataios. The employment
of two different names to designate the very same country is easily
explained by this double fact, that one of the names was the Indian
designation of the land, whilst the other was the indigenous name applied to
it by its inhabitants. There was yet another name, of Sanskrit origin, used
as a territorial appellation, of Gandhara—-that of Aśvaka, This word,

derived from aśva,
a horse, signified merely the cavaliers ; it was less an ethnic, in the rigorous acceptation of
the word, than a general appellation applied by the Indians of the Panjāb to the
tribes of the region of the Kophēs, renowned from antiquity for the excellence
of its horses. In tbe popular dialects the Sanskrit word took the usual form
Assaka, which reappears scarcely modified in Assakani (Ασσακανοι)or Assakēni (Ασσακηνοι) in the Greek historians of
the expedition of Alexander and subsequent writers. It is impossible not to
recognize here the name of Avghān or Afghāns. . . which is very evidently
nothing else than a contracted form of Assakān. . . Neither the Gandariē of
Hekataios nor the Paktyi of Herodotos are known to them [Arrian and other Greek
and Latin writers of the history of Alexander], but as it is the same territory
[as that of the Assakani], and as in actual usage the names Afghāns and Pakthūn
are still synonymous, their identity is not a matter of doubt."—Éude
sur le Géographie Grecque et Latine de l'Inde, pp. 376-8. The name of tbe Gandhāra, it may here be added,
remounts to the highest antiquity; it is mentioned in one of the hymns of the
Ṛig-Veda, as old perhaps as the 15 th century B.C.—Id. p. 364.

bVide
ante,
p. 62, n.

But before we come to this island there are
others, one being Patale, which, as we have indicated, lies at the mouth of the
Indus, triangular in shape, and 220a miles in breadth. Beyond the
mouth of the Indus are Chryse and Argyre,b [S. 154] rich, as I
believe, in metals. For I cannot readily believe, what is asserted by some
writers, that their soil is impregnated with gold and silver. At a distance of
twenty miles from these lies Crocala,c from which, at a distance of
twelve miles, is Bibaa, which abounds with oysters and other shell-fish.d
Next comes Toralliba,e nine miles distant from the last-named island,
beside many others unworthy of note.

aCCXX.—v.l. CXXX

b Burma and Arakan
respectively, according to Yule.—ED. Ind. Ant.

c In the bay of Karāchi,
identical with the Kolaka of Ptolemy. The district in which Karāchi is situated
is called Karkalla to this day.

d This is called Bibakta by
Arrian,
Indika, cap. xxi.

e
v. l. Coralliba.

FRAGM. LVI. B.

Solin. 52. 6-17.

Catalogue of Indian Races.

The greatest rivers of India are the Ganges
and Indus, and of these some assert that the Ganges rises from uncertain sources
and inundates the country in the manner of the Nile, while others incline to
think that it rises in the Scythian mountains. [The Hypanis is also there, a
very noble river, which formed the limit of Alexander's march, as the altars
erected
on its hanks prove.a] [S. 155] The least breadth of the Ganges
is eight miles, and its greatest twenty. Its depth where it is shallowest is
fully a hundred foot. The people who live in the furthest-off part are the
Gangarides, whose king possesses 1000 horse, 700 elephants, and 60,000 foot in
apparatus of war.

a
See Arrian's Anab. V. 29, where we read that Alexander having
arranged his troops in separate divisions ordered them to build on the banks
of the Hyphasis twelve altars to be of equal height with the loftiest
towers, while exceeding them in breadth. From Curtius we learn that they
were formed of square blocks of stone. There has been much controversy
regarding their site, but it must have been near the capital of Sopithēs,
whose name Lassen has identified with the Sanskrit Aśvapati, ' lord
of horses.' These Aśvapati were a line of princes whose territory, according
to the 12th book of the
Rāmāyaṇa, lay on the right or north bank of the Vipāśa (Hyphasis or Biās),
in the mountainous part of the Doāb comprised between that river and the
Upper Irāvati. Their capital is called in the poem of Vālmiki Rājagṛiha,
which still exists under the name of Rājagiri. At some distance from this
there is a chain of heights called Sekandar-giri, or 'Alexander's
mountain.'—-See ST-Martin's Étude, &c. pp. 108-111.

Of the Indians some cultivate the soil, very
many follow war, and others trade. The noblest and richest manage public
affairs, administer justice, and sit in council with the kings. There exists
also a fifth class, consisting of those most eminent for their wisdom, who, when
sated with life, seek death by mounting a burning funeral pile. Those, however,
who have become the devotees of a sterner sect, and pass their life in the
woods, hunt elephants, which, when made quite tame and docile, they use for
ploughing and for riding on.

In the Ganges there is an island extremely
populous, occupied by a very powerful nation whose king keeps under arms 50,000
foot and 4000 horse. In fact no one invested with kingly power ever keeps on
foot a military force without a very great number of elephants and foot and
cavalry.

The Prasian nation, which is extremely
powerful, inhabits a city called Palibotra, whence some call the nation itself
the Palibotri. Their [S. 156] king keeps in his pay at all times 60,000 foot
30,000 horse, and 8000 elephants.

Beyond Palibotra is Mount Maleus,a
on which shadows in winter fall towards the north, in summer towards the south,
for six months alternately. In that region the Bears are seen but once a year,
and not for more than fifteen days, as Beton informs us, who allows that this
happens in many parts of India. Those living near the river Indus in the regions
that turn southward are scorched more than others by the heat, and at last the
complexion of the people is visibly affected by the great power of the sun. The
mountains are inhabited by the Pygmies.

a
Possibly, as suggested by Yule, Mount Pārśvanātha, near the Damudā, and not
far from the Tropic; vide Ind. Ant vol. VI. p. 127, note §, and conf. vol. I. p. 46ff. The
Malli (see above), in whose country it was, are not to be confounded with
another tribe of the same name in the Panjāb, mentioned by Arrian ; see vol.
V. pp. 87, 96, 333,—Ed. Ind. Ant.

But those who live near the sea have no
kings.

The Pandaean nation is governed by females,
and their first queen is said to have been the daughter of Hercules. The city
Nysa is assigned to this region, as is also the mountain sacred to Jupiter,
Mēros by name, in a cave on which the ancient Indians affirm Father Bacchus was
nourished; while the name has given rise to the well-known fantastic story that
Bacchus was born from the thigh of his father. Beyond the mouth of the Indus are
two islands, Chryse and Argyre , which yield such an abundant supply of metals
that many writers lege their soils consist of gold and of silver. [S. 157]

FRAGM. LVII.

Polyaen. Strateg. 1. 1 . 1-3.

ofDionysos.

(Cf. Epit. 25 et seg.)

Dionysos, in his expedition against the
Indians, in order that the cities might receive him willingly, disguised the
arms with which he had equipped his troops, and made them wear soft raiment and
fawn-skins. The spears were wrapped round with ivy, and the thyrsus had a sharp
point. He gave the signal for battle by cymbals and drums instead of the
trumpet, and by regaling the enemy with wine diverted their thoughts from war to
dancing. These and all other Bacchic orgies were employed in the system of
warfare by which he subjugated the Indians and all the rest of Asia.

Dionysos, in the course of his Indian
campaign, seeing that his army could not endure the fiery heat of the air, took
forcible possession of the three-peaked mountain of India. Of these peaks one is
called Korasibiē , another Kondaskē, but to the third he himself gave the name
of Mēros, in remembrance of his birth. Thereon were many fountains of water
sweet to drink, game in great plenty, tree-fruits in unsparing profusion, and
snows which gave new vigour to the frame. The troops quartered there made a
sudden descent upon the barbarians of the plain, whom they easily routed, since
they attacked them with missiles from a commanding position on the heights
above. [S. 155]

[Dionysos, after conquering the Indians,
invaded Baktria, taking with him as auxiliaries the Indians and Amazons. That
country has for its boundary the river Sarangēs.a The Baktrians
seized the mountains overhanging that river with a view to attack Dionysos, in
crossing it, from a post of advantage. He, however, having encamped along the
river, ordered the Amazons and the Bakkhai to cross it, in order that the
Baktrians, in their contempt for women, might be induced to come down from the
heights. The women then assayed to cross the stream, and the enemy came
downhill, and advancing to the river endeavoured to beat them back. The women
then retreated, and the Baktrians pursued them as far as the bank ; then
Dionysos, coming to the rescue with his men, slew the Baktrians, who were
impeded from fighting by the current, and he crossed the river in safety.

a
See Ind. Ant. Notes to Arrian in vol. V. p. 332.

FRAGM. LVIII.

Polyaen.
Strateg. I. 3. 4.

Of Hercules and Pandaea.

(Cf. Fragm. L. 15.)

Heraklēs begat a daughter in India whom he
called Pandaia. To her he assigned that portion of India which lies to southward
and extends to the sea, while he distributed the people subject to her rule into
365 villages, giving orders that one village should each day bring to the [S.
159] treasury the royal tribute, so that the queen might always have the
assistance of those men whose turn it was to pay the tribute in coercing those
who for the time being were defaulters in their payments.

FRAGM. LIX.

Of the Beasts of India.

Aelian, Hist. Anim. XVI. 2-22.a

a
"In this extract not a few passages occur which appear to have been borrowed
from Megasthenēs. This conjecture, though it cannot by any means be placed
beyond doubt by conclusive proofs, seems nevertheless, for various reasons,
to attain a certain degree of probability. For in the first place the author
knows with unusual accuracy the interior parts of India. Then again he makes
very frequent mention of the Prasii and the Brāhmans. And lastly one can
hardly doubt that some chapters occurring in the middle of this part have
been extracted from Megasthenēs. I have, therefore, in this uncertainty
taken care that the whole of this part should be printed at the end of the
fragments of Megasthenēs."—Schwanbeck.

(2) In India I learn that there are to be
found the birds called
parrots; and though I have, no doubt, already mentioned them, yet what I
omitted to state previously regarding them may now with great propriety be here
set down. There are, I am informed, three species of them, and all these, if
taught to speak, as children are taught, become as talkative as children, and
speak with a human voice; but in the woods they utter a bird-like scream, and
neither send out any distinct and musical notes, nor being wild and untaught are
able to talk. There are also peacocks in India, the largest anywhere met with,
[S. 160] and pale-green ringdoves. One who is not well-versed in bird-lore,
seeing these for the firt time, would take them to be parrots, and not pigeons.
In the colour of the bill and legs they resemble Greek partridges. There are
also cocks, which are of extraordinary size, and have their crests not red as
elsewhere, or at least in our country, but have the flower-like coronals of which the crest is formed
variously coloured. Their rump feathers, again, are neither
curved nor wreathed, but are of great breadth, and they trail them in the way
peacocks trail their tails, when they neither straighten nor erect them : the
feathers of these Indian cocks are in colour golden, and also dark-blue like the
smaragdus.

(3) There is found in India also another
remarkable bird. This is of the size of a starling and is
parti-coloured, and is trained to utter the sounds of human speech. It is even
more talkative than the parrot, and of greater natural cleverness. So far is it
from submitting with pleasure to be fed by man, that it rather has such a pining
for freedom, and such a longing to warble at will in the society of its mates,
that it prefers starvation to slavery with sumptuous fare. It is called by the
Makedonians who settled among the Indians in the city of Boukephala and its
neighbourhood, and in the city called Kuropolis, and others which Alexander the
son of Philip built, the Kerkiōn
This name had, I believe, it's origin [S. 161] in the fact that the bird
wags its tail in the same way as the water-ousels (

οι
κικλοι).

(4)

I learn further that in India there
is a bird
called the
Kēlas, which is thrice the size of the bustard, and has a bill of prodigious
size and long legs. It is furnished also with an immense crop resembling a
leather pouch. The cry which it utters is peculiarly discordant. The plumage is
ash-coloured, except that the feathers at their tips are tinted with a pale
yellow.

(5) I hear also that the Indian hoopoe (

εποπα)
is double the size of ours, and more beautiful in appearance, and Homer says
that while the bridle and trappings of a horse are the delight of a Hellenic
king, this hoopoe is the favourite plaything of the king of the Indians, who
carries it on his hand, and toys with it, and never tires gazing in ecstasy on
its splendour, and the beauty with which Nature has adorned it. The Brachmanes,
therefore, even make this particular bird the subject of a mythic story, and the
tale told of it runs thus :—To the king of the Indians there was born a son. The
child had elder brothers, who when they came to man's estate turned out to be
very unjust and the greatest of reprobates. They despised their brother because
he was the youngest; and they scoffed also at their father and their mother,
whom they despised because they were very old and grey-haired. The boy,
accordingly, and his aged parents could at last no longer live with these wicked
men, and away they fled from home, all [S. 162] three together. In the course of
the protracted journey which they had then to undergo, the old people succumbed
to fatigue and died, and the boy showed them no light regard, but buried them in
himself, having cut off his head with a sword. Then, as the Brachmanes tell us,
the all-seeing sun, in admiration of this surpassing act of piety, transformed
the boy into a bird which is most beautiful to behold, and which lives to a very
advanced age. So on his head there grew up a crest which was, as it were, a
memorial of what he had done at the time of his flight. The Athenians have also
related, in a fable, marvels somewhat similar of the crested lark ; and this
fable Aristophanes, the comic poet, appears to me to have followed when he says
in the
Birds, "For thou wert ignorant, and not always bustling, nor always
thumbing Aesop, who spake of the crested lark, calling it the first of all
birds, born before ever the earth was ; and telling how afterwards her father
became sick and died, and how that, as the earth did not then exist, he lay
unburied till the fifth day, when his daughter, unable to find a grave
elsewhere, dug one for him in her own head."a [S. 163]

a Lines 470-75:—

"You're such a dull incurious lot,
unread in Aesop's lore,
Whose story says the lark was born first of the feathered quire,
Before the earth ; then came a cold and carried off his sire:
Earth was not: five days lay the old bird untombed : at last the son
Buried the father in his head, since other grave was none."

Dr. Kennedy's translation.

It seems, accordingly, probable that the
fable, though with a different bird for its subject, emanated from the Indians,
and spread onward even to the Greeks. For the Brachmanes say that a prodigious
time has elapsed since the Indian hoopoe, then in human form and young in years,
performed that act of piety to its parents.

(6.) In India there is an animal closely
resembling in appearance the land crocodile, and somewhere about the size of a
little Maltese dog. It is covered all over with a scaly skin so rough altogether
and compact that when flayed off it is used by the Indians as a file. It cuts
through brass and eats iron. They call it the phattages (pangolin or scaly ant-eater) . . . . . . .

(8.) The Indian sea breeds sea-snakes which
have broad tails, and the lakes breed hydras of immense size, but these
sea-snakes appear to inflict a bite more sharp than poisonous.

(9.) In India there are herds of wild
horses, and also of wild asses. They say that the mares submit to be covered by
the asses, and enjoy such coition, and breed mules, which are of a reddish
colour and very fleet, but impatient of the yoke and otherwise skittish. They
say that they catch these mules with foot-traps, and then take them to the king
of the Prasians, and that if they are caught when two years old they do not
refuse to be broken in, but if caught when beyond that age they differ in no
respect from sharp-toothed and carnivorous animals. [S. 164]

(Fragm. XII. E follows here.)

(11.) There is found in India a
graminivorous animal which is double the size of a horse, and which has a very
bushy tail purely black in colour. The hair of this tail is finer than human
hair, and its possession is a point on which Indian women set great store, for
therewith they make a charming coiffure, by binding and braiding it with the
locks of their own natural hair. The length of a hair is two cubits, and from a
single root there sprout out, in the form of a fringe, somewhere about thirty
hairs. The animal itself is the most timid that is known, for should it perceive
that any one is looking at it, it starts off at its utmost speed, and runs right
forward,—but its eagerness to escape is greater than the rapidity of its pace.
It is hunted with horses and hounds good to run. When it sees that it is on the
point of being caught, it hides its tail in some near thicket, while it stands
at bay facing its pursuers, whom it watches narrowly. It even plucks up courage
in away, and thinks that since its tail is hid from view the hunters will not
care to capture it, for it knows that its tail is the great object of
attraction. But it finds this to be, of course, a vain delusion, for some one
hits it with a poisoned dart, who then flays off the entire skin (for this is of
value) and throws away the carcase, as the Indians make no use of any part of
its flesh.

(12.) But further: whales are to be found
[S. 165] in the Indian Sea, and these five times larger than the largest
elephant. A rib of this monstrous fish measures as much as twenty cubits, and
its lip fifteen cubits. The fins near the gills are each of them so much as
seven cubits in breadth. The shell-fish called
Kērukes are also met with, and the purple-fish of a size that would admit
it easily into a gallon measure, while on the other hand the shell of the
sea-urchin is large enough to cover completely a measure of that size. But fish
in India attain enormous dimensions, especially the sea-wolves, the thunnies,
and the golden-eyebrows. I hear also that at the season when the rivers are
swollen, and with their full and boisterous flood deluge all the land, the fish
are carried into the fields, where they swim and wander to and fro, even in
shallow water, and that when the rains which flood the rivers cease, and the
waters retiring from the land resume their natural channels, then in the
low-lying tracts and in flat and marshy grounds, where we may be sure the
so-called Nine are wont to have some watery recesses (

κολποθσ),
fish even of eight cubits' length are found, which the husbandmen themselves
catch as they swim about languidly on the surface of the water, which is no
longer of a depth they can freely move in, but in fact so very shallow that it
is with the utmost difficulty they can live in it at all.

(13.) The following fish are also indigenous
[S. 166] to India: —prickly roaches, which are never in any respect smaller than
the asps of Argolis ; and shrimps, which in India are even larger than crabs.
These, I must mention, finding their way from the sea up the Ganges, have claws
which are very large, and which feel rough to the touch. I have ascertained that
those shrimps which pass from the Persian Gulf into the river Indus have their
prickles smooth, and the feelers with which they are furnished elongated and
curling, but this species has no claws.

(14.) The tortoise is found in India, where
it lives in the rivers. It is of immense size, and it has a shell not smaller
than a full-sized skiff (

σκαφη),and which is capable of
holding ten
medimni (120 gallons) of pulse. There are, however, also
land-tortoises which may be about as big as the largest clods turned up in a
rich soil where the glebe is very yielding, and the plough sinks deep, and,
cleaving the furrows with ease, piles the clods up high. These are said to cast
their shell. Husbandmen, and all the hands engaged in field labour, turn them up
with their mattocks, and take them out just in the way one extracts wood-worms
from the plants they have eaten into. They are fat things and their flesh is
sweet, having nothing of the sharp flavour of the sea-tortoise.

(15.) Intelligent animals are to be met with
among ourselves, but they are few, and not at all so common as they are in
India. For there we find [S. 167] the elephant, which answers to this character,
and the parrot, and apes of the sphinx kind, and the creatures called satyrs.
Nor must we forget the Indian ant, which is so noted for its wisdom. The ants of
our own country do, no doubt, dig for themselves subterranean holes and burrows,
and by boring provide themselves with lurking-places, and wear out all their
strength in what may be called mining operations, which are indescribably
toilsome and conducted with secrecy ; but the Indian ants construct for
themselves a cluster of tiny dwelling-houses, seated not on sloping or level
grounds where they could easily be inundated, but on steep and lofty eminences.
And in these, by boring out with untold skill certain circuitous passages which
remind one of the Egyptian burial-vaults or Cretan labyrinths, they so contrive
the structure of their houses that none of the lines run straight, and it is
difficult for anything to enter them or flow into them, the windings and
perforations being so tortuous. On the outside they leave only a single aperture
to admit themselves and the grain which they collect and carry to their
store-chambers. Their object in selecting lofty sites for their mansions is, of
course, to escape the high floods and inundations of the rivers ; and they
derive this advantage from their foresight, that they live as it were in so many
watch-towers or islands when the parts around the heights become all a lake.
Moreover, [S. 168] the mounds they live in, though placed in contiguity, so far
from being loosened and torn asunder by the deluge, are rather strengthened,
especially by the morning dew: for they put on, so to speak, a coat of ice
formed from this dew—thin, no doubt, but still of strength ; while at the same
time they are made more compact at their base by weeds and bark of trees
adhering, which the silt of the river has carried down. Let so much about Indian
ants be said by me now, as it was said by Iobas long ago.

(16) In the country of the Indian Areianoi
there is a subterranean chasm down in which there are mysterious vaults,
concealed ways, and thoroughfares invisible to men. These are deep withal, and
stretch to a very great distance. How they came to exist, and how they were
excavated, the Indians do not say, nor do I concern myself to inquire. Hither
the Indians bring more than thrice ten thousand head of cattle of different
kinds, sheep and goats, and oxen and horses; and every person who has been
terrified by an ominous dream, or a warning sound or prophetic voice, or who has
seen a bird of evil augury, as a substitute for his life casts into the chasm
such a victim as his private means can afford, giving the animal as a ransom to
save his soul alive. The victims conducted thither are not led in chains nor
otherwise coerced, but they go along this road willingly, as if urged forward by
some mysterious spell ; and as soon as they find themselves on the verge
[S. 169] of the chasm they voluntarily leap in, and disappear for ever from
human sight so soon as they fall into this mysterious and viewless cavern of the
earth. But above there are heard the bellowings of oxen, the bleating of sheep,
the neighing of horses, and the plaintive cries of goats, and if any one goes
near enough to the edge and closely applies his ear he will hear afar off the
sounds just mentioned. This commingled sound is one that never ceases, for every
day that passes men bring new victims to be their substitutes. Whether the cries
of the animals last brought only are heard, or the cries also of those brought
before, I know not,—all I know is that the cries are heard.

(17) In the sea which has been mentioned
they say there is a very large island, of which, as I hear, the name is
Taprobanē. From what I can learn, it appears to be a very long and mountainous
island, having a length of 7000 stadia and a breadth of 5000.a It has
not, however, any cities, but only villages, of which the number amounts to 750.
The houses in which the inhabitants lodge themselves are made of wood, and
sometimes also of reeds.

a
In the classical writers the size of this island is always greatly
exaggerated. Its actual length from north to south is 271½ miles, and its
breadth from east to west and its circuit about 650 miles.

(18.) In the sea which surrounds the
islands, tortoises are bred of so vast a size that their shells are employed to
make roofs for the houses : for a shell, being fifteen cubits in length, can
hold a [S. 170] good many people under it, screening them from the scorching
heat of the sun, besides affording them a welcome shade. But, more than this, it
is a protection against the violence of storms of rain far more effective than
tiles, for it at once shakes off the rain that dashes against it, while those
under its shelter hear the rain rattling as on the roof of a house. At all
events they do not require to shift their abode, like those whose tiling is
shattered, for the shell is hard and like a hollowed rock and the vaulted roof
of a natural cavern.

The island, then, in the great sea, which
they call Taprobane, has palm-groves, where the trees are planted with wonderful
regularity all in a row, in the way we see the keepers of pleasure-parks plant
out shady trees in the choicest spots. It has also herds of elephants, which are
there very numerous and of the largest size. These island elephants are more
powerful than those of the mainland, and in appearance larger, and maybe
pronounced to be in every possible way more intelligent. The islanders export
them to the mainland opposite in boats, which they construct expressly for this
traffic from wood supplied by the thickets of the island, and they dispose of
their cargoes to the king of the Kalingai. On account of the great size of the
island, the inhabitants of the interior have never seen the sea, but pass their
lives as if resident on a continent, though no doubt they learn from others [S.
171] that they are all around enclosed by the sea, The inhabitants, again, of
the coast have no practical acquaintance with elephant-catching, and know of it
only by report. All their energy is devoted to catching fish and the monsters of
the deep; for the sea encircling the island is reported to breed an incredible
number of fish, both of the smaller fry and of the monstrous sort, among the
latter being some which have the heads of lions and of panthers and of other
wild beasts, and also of rams ; and, what is still a greater marvel, there are
monsters which in all points of their shape resemble satyrs. Others are in
appearance like women, but, instead of having locks of hair, are furnished with
prickles. It is even solemnly alleged that this sea contains certain strangely
formed creatures, to represent which in a picture would baffle all the skill of
the artists of the country, even though, with a view to make a profound
sensation, they are wont to paint monsters which consist of different parts of
different animals pieced together. These have their tails and the parts which
are wreathed of great length, and have for feet either claws or fins. I learn
further that they are amphibious, and by night graze on the pasture-fields, for
they eat grass like cattle and birds that pick up seeds. They have also a great
liking for the date when ripe enough to drop from the palms, and accordingly
they twist their coils, which are supple, and large enough fur the purpose,
around [S. 172] these trees, and shake them so violently that the dates come
tumbling down, and afford them a welcome repast. Thereafter when the night
begins gradually to wane, but before there is yet clear daylight, they disappear
by plunging into the sea just as the first flush of morning faintly illumines
its surface. They say whales also frequent this sea, though it is not true that
they come near the shore lying in wait for thunnies. The dolphins are reported
to be of two sorts—one fierce and armed with sharp-pointed teeth, which gives
endless trouble to the fisherman, and is of a remorselessly cruel disposition,
while the other kind is naturally mild and tame, swims about in the friskiest
way, and is quite like a fawning dog. It does not run away when any one tries to
stroke it, and it takes with pleasure any food it is offered.

(19.) The sea-hare, by which I now mean the
kind found in the great sea (for of the kind found in the other sea I have
already spoken), resembles in every particular the land hare except only the
fur, which in the case of the land animal is soft and lies smoothly down, and
does not resist the touch, whereas its brother of the sea has bristling hair
which is prickly, and inflicts a wound on any one who touches it. It is said to
swim atop of the sea-ripple without ever diving below, and to be very rapid in
its movements. To catch it alive is no easy matter, as it never falls into the
net, nor goes near the line and [S. 173] bait of the fishing-rod. When it
suffers, however, from disease, and, being in consequence hardly able to swim,
is cast out on shore, then if any one touches it with his hand death ensues if
he is not attended to,—nay, should one, were it only with a staff, touch this
dead hare, he is affected in the same way as those who have touched a basilisk.
But a root, it is said, grows along the coast of the island, well known to every
one, which is a remedy for the swooning which ensues. It is brought close to the
nostrils of the person who has fainted, who thereupon recovers consciousness.
But should the remedy not be applied the injury proves fatal to life, so noxious
is the vigour which this hare has at its command.

Frag.XV. B. follows here.a

a This is the fragment in
which Aelian describes the one-horned animal which he calls the Kartazōn.
Rosenmller, who has treated at large of the unicorn, which he identifies
with the Indian rhinoceros, thinks that Aelian probably borrowed his account
of it from Ktēsias, who when in Persia may have heard exaggerated accounts
of it, or may have seen it represented in sculpture with variations from its
actual appearance. Tychsen derives its name from Kerd,
an old name, he says, of the rhinoceros itself, and tazan, i.e., currens
velox, irruens. Three animals were spoken of by the ancients as having a
single horn—the African Oryx, the Indian Ass, and what is specially called
the Unicorn.
Vide ante, p. 59.

(22.) There is also a race called the
Skiratai,a whose country is beyond India. They are [S. 174]
snub-nosed, either because in the tender years of infancy their nostrils are
pressed down, and continue to be so throughout their after-life, or because such
is the natural shape of the organ. Serpents of enormous size are bred in their
country, of which some kinds seize the cattle when at pasture and devour them,
while other kinds only suck the blood, as do the
Aigithelai in Greece, of which I have already spoken in the proper place.

a Vide ante, Fragm.
xxx. 3, p. 80, and p. 74, note, where they are identified with the Kirātas.
In the Rāmāyaṇa there is a passage quoted by Lassen (Zeitschr. f. Kunde d. Morqenl. II. 40) where are mentioned "the Kirātas, some of whom
dwell in Mount Mandara, others use their ears as a covering; they are
horrible, black-faced, with but one foot but very fleet, who cannot be
exterminated, are brave men, and cannibals." (Schwanbeck,. p. 66.) [Lassen
places one branch of them on the south bank of the Kauśī in Nipāl, and
another in Tiperā.—ED. Ind. Ant.]